When Garrettsville’s Summerfest first took place in 2005, organizer Aaron King acknowledged it was hard to generate interest. Now, whenever the event rolls around each summer, availability quickly fills up and it appears this will be another packed house when the annual summer festival begins this weekend.
“We have two stages of entertainment, a lot of live music, contests and entertainment,” King told The Weekly Villager on June 18. “We have now added for the second year what I want to call circus-style entertainment such as stilt walkers, jugglers, and a kids’ interactive circus. We have the traditional fireworks, we have the grand parade on Sunday and we have an amazing lineup of music, the best that we have ever had.”
The event occupies all of Main Street with one stage, sponsored by Daystar Ford, and is constructed by Cellar Door Coffee Co., and another stage, sponsored by Hopper Construction, at the corner of State Routes 82 and 88. The festivities begin on Friday at 6:30 p.m. and end with a golf cart raffle by Daystar Ford, Bonner Farms and Domino’s Pizza on Sunday night at 9 p.m.
After a successful bicentennial festival in 2005 held by the Garrettsville Area Chamber of Commerce, King said he and his cousin saw the potential for the festival to grow and petitioned the Village to hold an annual three-day summer festival.
After what King acknowledged was a tough sell to the community, the festival has now become a highly-anticipated event every summer. In addition to being free of charge for all tourists and residents, the festival offers spaces for vendors to promote their business and sell merchandise. Only 50 spaces are available and although the festival offers retention prices for returning vendors, there is also a waiting list for spaces that become available should vendors have to withdraw their participation.
At first the festival only had between 20-30 vendors but now more vendors apply for spaces than it can offer.
King added that since the arrival of the Sarchione Chevy Dealership of Garrettsville, the event has really taken off, as the dealership’s sponsorship has allowed the festival to pursue some high-profile bands to come and perform, including Old Skool, a cover band that performs throwback dance music from every era, Take 2, a cover band that performs great hits from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and Ace Molar, a rock and dance band that has Fox 8 news anchor Todd Meany as its lead performer.
King noted that the small gestures from local businesses have not gone unnoticed and have gone a long way into putting on a successful summer festival each year.
“I have guys that own factories here in Garrettsville and they let me park the ride trucks and let me put the ride campers next to their building and let me provide electric and water,” he said. “Middlefield Bank sells raffle tickets and shirts for us but you are always needing something from your neighbors, and everybody has always been very giving and very nice to us which leads to the success.”
One of the biggest draws has been the annual raffle, which since last year, now offers a four-seat golf cart from Daystar Ford as the grand prize with a year’s supply of Domino’s Pizzas and two huge steak bundles from Bonner Farms as secondary prizes.
“We sold way more tickets for the golf cart than a car for the last five years so we are definitely in on a golf cart now for a while until this dies down,” King said. “Tickets are going right now, and we are going to raffle it off Sunday night at the festival and it is a pretty cool idea.”
The festival also has some new events, including a hot wing eating contest sponsored by KZsoldit on Saturday beginning at 5:15 p.m. and a mullet contest sponsored by Shannan Jursa of State Farm on Sunday at 6:30 p.m.
“It is hard coming up with some new ideas,” King said.” Like every group, we do not have a lot of committee members to chair different events so some have dropped to the wayside, but if somebody comes up with a good idea and is willing to help put it on and is willing to entertain it, we will certainly try to spice up the menu every year.”
As big as the festival has grown over the years, King said it would not have grown this much without assistance from the Garrettsville Area Chamber of Commerce.
“The Chamber has been great,” he said. “They have been with us every year and now let us use the Buckeye Block to put kids’ rides on which allows there to be enough rides to be worth families buying a wristband because they now have enough selection to choose from.”
