Over the past few years, Warrensburg Main Street and the City of Warrensburg have worked to build a strong relationship that is mutually supportive to better the future of the entire Warrensburg Community. Through open communication and transparency, the partnership between our organizations has grown and strengthened.
The growth of our relationship with the City of Warrensburg made strides when they were finalists of our annual awards ceremony. Evening of Excellence, in early 2023. They were awarded for their constant encouragement, growth, and support throughout the entire City organization. All of these factors came together again towards the end of 2023 as we were preparing for our annual fall festival, Burg Fest. As an organization, we were celebrating 10 years of Burg Fest and the committee was looking to do something different. Over the years the community had requested a carnival during the festival but multiple issues have always stood in the way of adding that to our event. When planning for the 10 year anniversary of the festival began, staff reached out to a large number of carnival companies to once again try to see if a carnival would work in our downtown footprint. All of the companies were booked for the 2023 season and we quickly put the dream away to work on the other aspects of the event.
During the summer a board member was attending a nearby festival and asked their carnival company if they would be interested in setting up during Burg Fest in the future and to contact Main Street to discuss logistics and other contractual obligations. We were excited to have a lead but knew that it would not be until the festival in 2024. Unexpectedly, we were contacted one month prior to Burg Fest and the festival company had a cancellation and wanted to know if we were still interested in enhancing our carnival. Without hesitation, the answer from our board was.. WELL DUH!
As an always-dreaming organization, we could not believe our luck. We just might actually get a festival for our 10-year celebration of Burg Fest. As you can imagine, the logistics involved in bringing a carnival to a downtown footprint with only one month’s notice might have seemed impossible. It became an enormous undertaking in such a short time but we were determined to try. Our first obstacle was to see if the carnival could even fit in the allotted space that we had available downtown. After a quick assessment by the carnival company, we received the green light to move forward. The next big obstacle was all the logistics involved in setting up a carnival on city streets and county parking lots with only a month’s notice. We made multiple phone calls and meetings to ensure that we could use the county parking lots and that the staff could be accommodated in other downtown areas during the setup for the festival.
We also immediately reached out to The City of Warrensburg and requested their help in switching logistics and other necessary changes to accommodate the equipment. The City of Warrensburg Manager and Staff were immediately supportive. We worked through scenarios which resulted in “whatever you need from us to make this happen we are here to support”. It was incredible to have this level of support from our city as we soon found out that we needed creative thinking to pull this off.
A carnival needed multiple days to set up all of the equipment and since we are a county seat some of the parking lots were not available until later in the week. After consulting the city and the carnival company we were able to secure an off site city parking lot where the carnival could be staged in and transported to the county lots closer to the start of the festival. Additionally, we had to move the entire beer garden and main stage entertainment to Pine Street which had never been used as part of the festival layout. This meant big logistical changes, street closure updates, liquor license changes, and many other details that we worked out with the City, business owners, and the festival committee. The City of Warrensburg went above and beyond to ensure that we were able to add a carnival for our 10-year celebration of Burg Fest.
We knew that the community has always requested a carnival at Burg Fest but we could never have imagined the positive feedback we received from adding this to our fall festival. The initial Facebook post announcing the carnival had over 700 reactions, 108 comments, and 610 shares with an overall reach of 92,000 people engaging in Burg Fest as an event of Warrensburg Main Street,. All of this excitement culminated with our best attended and overall feedback received for Burg Fest from our survey. The community truly showed up and expressed interest with over 29,000 attending the Friday night and Saturday event. The feedback was so immense that we decided that we could not have the carnival as a part of Burg Fest. None of this could be possible without the support from the City of Warrensburg.
Regardless of the carnival they continue to set-up, support, plan, attend and market this annual event. We could never have the event without the support from the City of Warrensburg and their staff as the logistics of it could never exist without them. We are happy to say that we were able to secure the carnival for the 2024 event!