The Elizabethton-Carter County Chamber of Commerce announced this week that after this year it will no longer be in charge of organizing the annual Covered Bridge Celebration, the downtown Christmas Parade, and the Fraser Fir Lighting — three premiere events that the Chamber has long hosted and been involved in.
Chamber President David LeVeau said the Chamber should be focused on assisting businesses, economic development, education, and tourism rather than organizing and promoting festivals.
The Chamber has long been an integral part of the community and in helping shape community events. However, we understand their stepping away from organizing and hosting the events, as it takes much time and work to get a parade together, and even more time and work to put together the Covered Bridge Festival.
The Covered Bridge Festival is a signature event for Elizabethton and is a unique way to attract visitor dollars and local spending. In recent years, the festival has faltered. It once was a weeklong festival, and this year it was only a weekend event.
Though festivals might only last a handful of days, they take an incredible amount of work to pull off. For most events, like the Covered Bridge Festival, planning for the next year’s event starts a few months — and sometimes just days — after the last closing act of this year’s event. There’s a tremendous amount of time, people, money and energy that goes into planning and organizing an event like the Covered Bridge Festival.
If planned and executed well, festivals and parades are great ways to inject dollars into small communities such as Elizabethton, but their benefits reach beyond dollars and cents. They can also create a sense of community, built community pride and help civic organizations impact their communities.
There’s a lot of tradition behind the Covered Bridge Festival, and even the Fraser Fir Lighting, and Christmas Parade. When have we not ever had a Christmas Parade in downtown Elizabethton.
We suggest that the new Elizabethton Main Street organization and the Elizabethton Parks and Recreation Department work together to keep these events going. The Parks and Rec Department has done a great job organizing the summer concerts in the park and the Fourth of July Celebration at the Covered Bridge Park.
Perhaps, by working together the Park and Rec staff and Main Street organization can come up with some new ideas to rejuvenate the Covered Bridge Festival by adding more events, more vendors, and more nights of music. People enjoy coming to downtown when there’s something to come to. Last Sunday’s Christmas open house proved that. Downtown was full of people and they shopped and bought. Most shop owners will tell you they had a great afternoon.
Also, the Second Friday Events this summer have proven popular with the community. The downtown has seen increased foot traffic on those evenings.
Give people something to come to and they will come.
The economic benefits of events such as the Covered Bridge Festival are easiest to see. The festival attracts visitors, which stimulates the growth of tourism and other businesses to the town.
The social benefits are less visible, but they are just as important. As mentioned earlier, the festival fosters community pride and strengthens relationships with businesses and the community.
Also, we encourage involving civic clubs and citizens of the community in organizing the festival as well as the Christmas Parade, and Fraser Fir Lighting. Connections are the “glue” that hold communities together. We have some wonderful citizens living and working in this community who could contribute immensely to these efforts — why not capitalize on their talents and abilities?
We hope City Council will get involved and fast.
We can have the best Covered Bridge Festival ever in 2020, but the work must begin soon!