Golden City Committee apologizes for snafu regarding event location
By Contributor
The Golden City Days Committee thanks the many citizens who didn’t let the dreary weather deter them from joining us for the parade and festivities! One can never predict nor prevent foul weather but the show did go on. We regret that the inflatable fun park had to be cancelled but the impending rain would have ruined them. The alternate indoor site we had in mind did not work out.
We have been hearing various comments around town and in media articles regarding the location of the Golden City Days parade and events. The committee had several discussions surrounding the issue of GCD locations last fall and again in January.
After moving the events and parade last year due to downtown construction, we had a great deal of positive feedback from all participants, vendors, and families. Some of the reasons for our decision to continue to locate the GCD events and parade in the arena parking lot and the 2nd Ave. area included the following:
- families were pleased to attend the Fall Fair and GCD events in one location; many mentioned they were happy to have the events back where they used to be years ago;
- the Fall Fair Committee informed us that their attendance was greatly increased due to holding the GCD events outside in the parking lot; the parade participants found the new route much flatter and easier to maneuver than tackling the hills;
- locating the parade route in the 2nd Ave. area was much safer for our spectators, especially the young children, and there was no worry about highway traffic;
- the parade route didn’t plug up the highway going through town, possibly preventing potential shoppers from visiting our stores;
- when the parade was held downtown, there was very little parking for anyone passing through town who may have wanted to stop for a bite to eat; the noise from the highway traffic through town always made it extremely difficult to hear the outdoor stage performers on Washington St.;
- vendors had a flat area in the arena parking lot, instead of the slope of Washington St.;
- and the hump in the middle of Washington St. always made it difficult to level the outdoor stage.
It was unfortunate that there were some who believed that the GCD parade and events would be located in the downtown area this year, despite our efforts in publicizing the actual locations in newspaper articles, online sources, and the Schedule of Events, which was posted to many online sources, in both the Rossland News and Trail Daily Times, as well as distributed to a good portion of Rossland businesses well before the event.
Our committee discussed at length the idea of holding some events downtown but realized that it would be difficult to split up the events. How were we to decide which events and vendors would be placed where? In addition, ultimately, if we had events downtown and in the arena lot, many people would miss out on some events and the Fall Fair. It seemed only logical to keep everything close together.
We value highly the participation of our local merchants, as they contribute to the success of Golden City Days in so many ways. Regretfully, we very recently learned that many Rossland merchants did not receive the communication from the GCD Committee in January and were unaware that the parade and events were being located away from the downtown core.
Before anything was set in stone, we did attempt to communicate with our business owners via a detailed letter to the Rossland Chamber of Commerce to explain the reasoning behind our decision to locate the events as we did and find ways in which to involve the Rossland business community. In this letter to business owners in January (several factors dictated the need for the committee to plan the location in January), we welcomed suggestions of ways in which they would like to participate and offered ideas of our own. When we received little feedback, and without realizing that not all businesses are Chamber members, we assumed that most of our local businesses weren’t concerned about the change in location. We now, however, wonder if our letter was overlooked among all of the other communications local merchants receive from the Chamber of Commerce at that time of the year.
As we will have our committee wrap-up meeting in the coming weeks, we invite all citizens and merchants to offer feedback on the events and locations this year as well as suggestions for improving the parade route and events in the future. We are always striving to build on the Golden City Days weekend by adding new events (outhouse races, mini bocce tournament, white elephant sale), but a small organizing committee cannot do it alone. We need more help.
The members of this committee begin planning for the weekend festival in January and spend hundreds of hours of their time trying to do their best to please everyone. We need groups and volunteers to suggest new events (children’s games, logger sports) and come forward to offer their help in organizing and hosting these events. We truly appreciate those groups and volunteers who came forward to make the 2013 weekend festival a successful event!
Constructive comments and suggestions may be emailed to GoldenCityDays@hotmail.com. Feedback will be reviewed and discussed by the committee and will aid us in making decisions for future GCD festivals. Your support of the annual Golden City Days festival is always very much appreciated.
The GCD Committee apologizes to all Rossland merchants for not contacting them directly to ensure that we had their input regarding the impact of GCD on their businesses.
