We just said goodbye to another year and over a dozen of Durango’s best (Herald, Dec. 29). To that list, we must add the Hesperus Ski Area and the Four Corners Folk Festival, two iconic Southwest Colorado institutions.
Hesperus, a mighty little mountain that for 62 years served up weeknight skiing and affordable family fun, closed to mechanical issues with its double lift this and last season. The folk festival after 28 years on Pagosa Springs’ Reservoir Hill over Labor Day’s long weekend is pressing pause, this year, too (Herald, Dec. 20).
A few other Durango institutions in recent years have also hit the brakes on traditional events.
The Christmas dinner at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, Who’s Your Daddy, Men Who Grill and Taste of Durango have all been absent from the community’s calendar. Though Manna stepped in this year and anticipated serving up to 800 Christmas meals (Herald, Dec. 25).
The common denominator? COVID-19 and that these events require enormous, frequently volunteer, people power to put on. And, in the end, sometimes the resources required to carry out an annual fundraiser were not worth the effort.
The type of evaluation and analysis COVID-19 required forced limited resources to be redirected and innovation to occur. In some cases, mission alignment was reconsidered. The Durango Chamber hosted “Singing with Santa” for years then passed it to the Boys & Girls Club that then passed it to the Durango Business Improvement District, a better home by far.
A serious disruption can also have some positive outcomes.
Community Connections’ popular holiday event Festival of Trees held the first weekend in December created a new way for more people to participate across county lines. A mission focused on serving people with intellectual and development disabilities, the organization already had expertise in how to be inclusive.
It created a new aspect to their event so people in the biggest communities they serve in Cortez and Durango could see the trees (and newly added wreaths, less expensive to sponsor) online and did not need to attend physically. With some creativity and ingenuity, they expanded their audience and fundraising dollars and retained, for now, a beloved Durango event, and created a new one in Cortez.
Though their events still require significant volunteer and staff time, when many nonprofits and for-profits struggle with competing for an audience, Community Connections expanded theirs. 20254
Even when an event is held on a regular day of the week or month during a year, for years, like the Four Corners Folk Festival, it can struggle. Hesperus Ski Patrol’s 60th annual ski swap, regularly held on the first Saturday in November, this year also saw a declining audience which affects vendors’ and the public’s interest in coming back. No people equal no sales, no used inventory or great deals.
Getting the word out can also be an enormous barrier to attracting participation. Tom Sluis, the city of Durango’s spokesman, spoke to today’s fragmented information landscape. Everyone is getting their information from so many different places.
Print, digital (websites and apps), broadcast (radio, cable and online TV), event websites, social media ... the list goes on. Durango’s online calendars alone include DowntownDurango.org (that partners with WhatsHappeningDurango.com), VisitDurango.org, and Durango.com.
But these sites mostly cater to tourists. The Herald’s editorial board has long-maintained that what’s good for our community is good for tourism. It’s past time to (finally) come up with a solution to the issue of competition and overlapping events.
We need one central community location where the city and county, Fort Lewis College, nonprofits and for-profits and others can post events. Sluis asked if we need a city-sponsored Blue Ribbon Panel to discuss the issue? Yes, says we. And soon.
