Rain, heat fail to keep crowds away from Pioneer Festival

The 33rd annual Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival once again brought large crowds to Winchester, with a few kinks.
The festival began with the downtown street dance Friday night with performances by local singer Lauren Mink opening for Nashville-based band High Ground as planned. Saturday, the Daniel Boone 5K and the arts and crafts booths saw high participation and attendance.
Sunday, however, the concerts and fireworks planned for Lykins Park were canceled because of rain.
“(It’s) the first time in all these years that we’ve had to cancel,” said festival organizer Kitty Strode.
Strode said she and festival workers waited two hours before making the call to cancel, and the lightning made conditions dangerous. Although it did quit raining, she said, it would have been another two hours before the stage could be dried enough to use.
“So it just wasn’t going to be feasible,” she said. “. ... You know, you just have those things sometimes and this was one of them.”
Strode also said this year was an exceptionally hot year, and the festival had problems it had never experienced before, like blowing electrical circuits.
Strode said now that this year’s festival has come and gone, she will begin planning for next year’s. Some of the money from this year’s festival will go toward deposits for the 2012 event, and she said this year will be a tighter year because of the concert cancelation.
As for coming up with an alternate venue in case a similar situation happens in the future, Strode said there is not another venue big enough and it would not be feasible to switch venues last minute because of weather.
“You just think, OK, that’s a fluke thing ... and hopefully it’ll never happen again,” she said.
Besides the heat and the rain obstacles, Strode said it was a successful year, and vendors she has talked to were pleased.

Contact Katie Perkowski at kperkowski@winchestersun.com.