The 33rd annual Durango Cowboy Poetry gathering is coming up at the end of next month, and the organization can use some help putting up some of its out-of-town performers.
Pam Petrie, executive director of the gathering, said this year is different from all the others – traditionally, the gathering would house performers in donated hotel rooms. But because of the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, rooms just aren’t available.
“One of the things that sets the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering apart from other gatherings is that we have provided hotel rooms for our performers. This was a nice benefit: When a performer comes from somewhere else, and you can say, ‘Here, we have your accommodations arranged and this is where you’ll be and here’s where we’d like you to perform at,’ and we just kind of take care of them and make it super-easy for them to come and participate,” she said. “This year, it was unanimous – every hotel we approached, they weren’t able to donate the rooms this year. Because of COVID last year, the hotels just had a tough time, and they are trying to make up ground from last year’s shutdown. ... And there was discussion – maybe we don’t provide it –but a big portion of the board felt like that is something that we’re really proud that we do and they wanted to continue that. And so then we went to, ‘Why don’t we ask around and see if there are some VRBOs, some guest homes, some other options in our community to fill this void.’”
To help
If you have a place to offer performers for the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, contact Executive Director Pam Petrie at Pam@durangocowboygathering.org.
For more information about the 33rd annual Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, visit www.durangocowboypoetrygathering.org.
So far, Petrie said, the gathering has received several really good responses.
“People have a second home here, it’s vacant; they’ve got a guest house, whatever it is, and they’re just so willing to open that up to us, and we’re so grateful and appreciative of that,” she said, adding that the gathering is looking for about 24 spots for performers.
This year’s gathering will run Thursday, Sept. 30, to Saturday night, Oct. 2, so performers would check out on Sunday morning, Oct. 3, Petrie said, adding that there are some things to consider when offering up a place for performers to stay.
“Privacy is important, and I think a private bedroom and shower, of course. We do not expect our homestays to feed or entertain our performers at all – there’s no expectation of that. There’s also no expectation that the performers should have to perform for their stay,” she said. “If a VRBO or a guest house has certain criteria, we want to know about it – one of them is that a share has requested that anybody that stays in their home be vaccinated, so we will accommodate that if we can. Somebody said no pets, that’s fine. No smoking, just your typical things. So we try to match the best, so if we’ve got a guest home with two bedrooms and one bath, then we know that’s likely a family situation of performers. If there are two bedrooms and two baths, maybe we can put two different couples there as long as they are amicable and willing to cohabitate together.”
Along with the differences to performer housing, more public changes are in store for this year’s gathering as well, Petrie said.
The Gathering lost its home base when the Henry Strater Theatre closed in 2020, so it has had to find new places to perform. This year, evening performances will be held at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, and daytime shows will be split among three downtown venues: Four Leaves Winery, Strater Hotel and Wild Horse Saloon, Petrie said
“We like keeping some of our activity downtown just to bring the traffic to our downtown retailers and restaurants. It’s important to us, we feel like we’re an economic stimulus in the shoulder season. We really try to support our downtown retail and the restaurant businesses.
katie@durangoherald.com
