Whither Freedom Festival?

In a somewhat abrupt announcement, the Freedom Festival board of directors voted to relinquish their responsibilities for organizing the annual downtown festival and boat race. The board feels that a group of full-time, paid committee is necessary to put on future editions of the summer festival.

The show must go on, however. WFIE confirms that The Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville organization will take over operation of the Freedom Festival going forward. WFIE is also reporting that the boating docks used for Thunder on the Ohio are up for sale, so even if GAGE is taking over the organization of the street festival, we might have seen the last of the hydroplane race itself.

Looks like I may need some new bingo squares for 2009.

Here’s the full release:

Evansville, IN - The Freedom Festival Board of Directors has voted to relinquish the organizational responsibilities for Evansville’s annual signature riverfront event.

The board held considerable discussion in order to reach the decision to end its role in planning and presenting the Freedom Festival. They carefully weighed the increasing demands of securing adequate sponsorship funding and handling the extensive planning details for the event that has gained national attention and attracted tens of thousands of people to Evansville each year. The all-volunteer board, each with full-time jobs and family obligations were assisted by hundreds of volunteers who helped stage the annual event.

“Putting on a quality event of this size with the type of attractions that the public expects simply proved to be an enormous challenge for a relatively small group of very dedicated volunteers,” said Scott Hinton, the 2008 board president. “The Freedom Festival has grown to the point that full-time planning and staffing is needed and we realize as an all-volunteer board, we can no longer effectively meet the obligations,” added Hinton.

photo courtesy of Sierra Koch