The Darien Chamber of Commerce is examining all of its options for returning DarienFest to a three-day event, but the executive director rejected city officials claim it is not a community event.
“I’ve been with the chamber for 10 years and I’ve seen the event grow,” said chamber executive director Claire Bongiovanni. “I’ve seen little kids in buggies who are now at Eisenhower Junior High School. The same people are there every year so it’s a community festival.”
Bongiovanni said people will get there at 3 p.m. Saturday to reserve a spot in the Community Park.
“It’s a party. It’s a strong festival. Bands will fight to get in. Vendors will fight to get it,” she said. “I think more people view it as a community event more than a fundraiser.”
The festival was cut to one day this year from its normal three-day run when the city of Darien announced that it would not provide in-kind donation of city services, such as police protection and barricades. Any city services would need to be paid for by the chamber, city officials said.
The Darien City Council debated last month if DarienFest is a community event that warrants city financial support or a fundraiser for the Chamber of Commerce, a private entity.
Alderman Sylvia McIvor was adamant that the event is a funding mechanism for the chamber.
“Let’s be honest. This is a fundraiser,” McIvor said at that meeting. “The taxpayers from the city shouldn’t be charged for their fundraiser. If there are fees, we should pass them through and they should pay for them; and the same holds true for the park district.”
Bongiovanni said that she views the annual event as both a community event and fundraiser for the chamber.
“We are brainstorming what to do to make it easier on the chamber,” she said, noting she spent 57 hours at Community Park over five days, which included set-up and tear-down of the three-day carnival.
“It’s hard to find volunteers … Ten years ago, we had a crew of chamber members that embraced the set-up,” she said. “Now, we have a skeleton crew of two or three people, and it’s always the same two or three people, trying to set up.”
Options that have been floated include having a service organization, such as the Lions Club, take over running the event or possibly having a private company handle the logistics of the festival.
Bongiovanni said she is uncertain how the chamber did financially with a one-day fest this year in contrast to the normal three-day DarienFest. She said invoices are still coming in for the event, including the bill for city police and public works crews to be on site. She expected it would not be until November before there is a clear indication how well DarienFest did this year financially.
Bongiovanni said that only two food vendors being present for DarienFest — a complaint of some fest attendees — was due to the uncertainty associated with a one-day event.
“Vendors were afraid of the risk,” Bongiovanni said. “It was a risk for all of us not knowing what Mother Nature would do.”
Many community groups, such as the Rotary, Darien Women’s Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Kiwanis, already supply manpower for the festival. The chamber is now checking if various groups could pick up full components of the event.
“We are looking to get everyone to work together,” Bongiovanni said. “It would work smoothly if we all took a component.”
The chamber director said it was clear from comments at the fest that people like the event how it was.
“Everyone wants it three days,” Bongiovanni said. “They’re used to the fest being three days. They would go as a child and now their children go.”
She said the chamber could not afford entertainment for three days as well as paying for the city services.
“We would have been in the negative (for cash flow). We had to revise the fest and present a one-day event,” she said. “We did the best we could, but people do not like change. Next year marks 30 years for the event. People want to see it come back and be three days.”
Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press
