Profit loss ends winter festivals

Shirley Shangguan Staff Writer

Wintertime excursions for Vassar students often include snow sculptures on the quad or traying down by Sunset Lake. Those who wish to add Winterfest or the Arlington Holiday festival to their list will have to go without this year.

The Arlington Business Improvement District (BID) and Arlington Special Events Committee cancelled both events due to vendors’ lack of interest.

The Holiday Festival includes tree lighting and caroling the first Saturday after Thanksgiving weekend to kick off holiday shopping .

Winterfest, which has occurred in February for the past three years, was created to connect students and faculty with merchants in Main Building. The first year, a small number of businesses participated, but most were from the Farmer’s Market and the numbers only continued to dwindle the second time around. Last year, the even was moved to Walker Field in order to introduce an authentic sleigh ride into the festivities. Instead, the few students that turned out for the event found themselves on an expensive carriage ride, sans snow and sleigh.

“It was under-advertised to students. There were not a lot of events or vendors. It’s not like the Arlington Street Fair, which is bigger and better,” Jimmy Kelly ’ 09 said.

Susan Sheehan, a vendor of hand-made greeting cards and gift items, said that although her items received interest, she did not profit from this event. However, she maintained that “As an employee of the College, it was really fun for me to interact with students and other employees on a different level than I do on a day-to-day basis.”

Loss of profit was also due to financial sacrifices made to facilitate participation in the festival. Many businesses had to close their shops in order to participate in the event. “Staffing was also an issue of cost and time,” said Bob Raisch, manager of the Arlington BID.

Advertising and promotion cost the organization an additional $2,500 a year. Since the BID receives its money from local vendors, lack of profit proved a strong deterrent to holding the festival.

So far, the Arlington BID is not planning any events this spring, but they are already starting to plan for the next Arlington Street Fair. “For events such as the Arlington Street Fair to be successful, [they] must have a large attendance and to be profitable for vendors depends on coordinating the event with things like [Vassar Freshmen] Parents Weekend,” Raisch said.

Although the event did not prove to be a success, Vassar Director of Internal Services and Special Projects and Chairman of Arlington Special Events Andrew Meade still sees value in the event’s intentions.“I think we'd do both events every year if we had the money, because I think both events were terrific ways to engage the campus and local communities in a common space,” he said.