August 25, 2014 Lincoln Daily News.com 2014 Art & Balloon Festival 161
afternoon. Hake spoke briefly about why this
decision has been made. Recalling conversations
with downtown merchants, and results of
surveys, she said the festival in its current state
has become too big, and instead of helping
increase local revenues, it is actually hurting the
downtown businesses.
She cited the pitfalls of having so many activities
going on in one weekend. Among them she
said it was difficult for retailers and other area
businesses to do target market advertising when
there were too many targets. She noted that
businesses need to reach specific customers
through target marketing, but when you have
the barbecue, art, balloons, wine and mirco
breweries, flea markets, car shows, and historic
events all going on at once, choosing the target
becomes a big challenge.
In addition, Hake said, visitors to the community
don’t always leave happy, because they felt
divided in what they could see and do. Those
who wanted to go to the ballooning events were
forced to miss some of the barbecue events and
vice versa. She said many of the chamber surveys
came back with comments that people had tried
too hard to see everything offered, and had still
not been able.
She finally noted, that as the festival grows in
offerings each year, the need for volunteers
grows. She told the crowd that this year,
attendance numbers had been down, probably
due to the weather. But, she said, that may have
been a blessing. Hake went on to say this year;
they came up about 200 volunteers short of
having all they needed.
She also noted that the growth of the festival has
put a strain on local safety professionals. She said
the Lincoln Police Department, EMA, and other
safety organizations were stretched to the limit
and beyond on being able to provide security
around the various event locations. She also
noted this year, some very important night time
security details had to be dropped because the
local law officials didn’t have the manpower to
have people out at all the various locations.
Spreading the festival components across four
weekends in four separate months will help solve
many, if not all of these issues, Hake said.
Furthermore, it is hoped that each component will
take off and grow again, bringing more and more
visitors to Lincoln and Logan County.
The goal of the chamber is to help grow area
businesses and encourage new business to come
into Logan County. Hake said her awakening
came last year when she was told that so many
people were in Lincoln on the festival weekend
that the stores, while crowded with visitors, were
not selling anything. She said it was shocking to
hear, but she made a point of trying to shop last
year during the festival and soon realized just how
uncomfortable and difficult it was to do so. She
is hopeful that making these changes in 2015 will
provide for more tourist activity in Logan County,
and will bring more business to local retailers.
