Old Hilliardfest Cancellation Prompts Outpouring of Community Feeling
Accumulation of challenges prove too much for this year's staging of venerable street fair.
A Hilliard tradition of nearly four decades is to end this year.
While interrupted twice before, once for floodwaters and another for a pandemic, this time the cancellation is financial, but organizers aren’t calling it quits just yet.
More than three years after the onset of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, life’s routines and rituals have generally resumed but life in Hilliard will again seem different in the absence of city’s flagship festival of nearly four decades.
It was neither an easy nor a sudden decision but on July 21, the Hilliard Civic Association, organizers of the Old Hilliardfest Art & Street Fair, announced the festival scheduled for Sept. 9, was cancelled.
“It might have seemed like a sudden decision to many people but it was building,” Robert Vance, treasurer of the Hilliard Civic Association said July 25.
Vance said organizers expected a moderate drop in both participating vendors and corporate sponsors when the festival was staged in 2021, after the hiatus in 2020 when virtually every fair, festival and farmer’s market was cancelled during the height of the pandemic.
But when the number of vendors and sponsors did not rebound enough in 2022 and 2023- and coupled with a steep increase in the fixed costs associated with staging the event- it became apparent it was not financially feasible to present this year’s festival, Vance said.
“And it would not have been fair to the vendors who had already committed,” to wait until within two weeks of the event to decide that we could not stage it, Vance said.
In 2021 and 2022, the Hilliard Civic Association subsidized the festival, tapping into “a nest egg” to offset operating deficits caused by fewer vendors, less corporate sponsors, and inflationary factors for fixed costs such as technical support to operate the stages for live music, special duty police required in conjunction with liquor licenses, liability insurance required to hold the festival, janitorial services, and other fixed costs, Vance said.
“Going into this year, we knew we faced the same challenges,” and the point came “we had to pull the plug on it,” Vance said.
“It was a difficult and emotional decision, it wasn’t on a whim,” and the decision was vetted through city channels, vendors and those involved in the festival’s planning for several days before it was publicly announced, Vance said.
Only 54 vendors were registered for this year’s festival, or less than half of the number of pre-pandemic vendors, which was usually about 120 to 130, Vance said.
The future of the festival is not clear.
Vance said many well-meaning people have since lamented its cancellation and questioned what alternate paths could have been explored.
The Hilliard Civic Association is to discuss with entities as they are identified how the festival, in its current or a possible different iteration, might be staged in the future, Vance said.
The festival was first held in 1985 as Old Hilliard Day, a single-day festival on the streets of Old Hilliard, and was the product of an effort by business owners in the Old Hilliard district to create a street fair.
In 2001, the Hilliard Civic Association organized as a non-profit organization and began staging the festival, eventually changing its formal name to Old Hilliardfest Art & Street Fair.
Since its founding, the festival has on occasion been a two-day festival, but was always held in Old Hilliard except for one year when it shifted to the Franklin County Fairgrounds during construction of roads in Old Hilliard in the early 2000s.
It was cancelled in 2018 after heavy rains caused flash flooding on the morning of the festival and again in 2020 because of the pandemic, but has otherwise been held every year since 1985 on the second weekend of September.
Former Hilliard Mayor Roger Reynolds and his staff worked alongside the Hilliard Business Association to launch the first event.
“I and many of our residents are saddened by the cancellation of what I always call Old Hilliard Day,” Reynolds said.
While mayor, Reynolds’ staff worked with the Old Hilliard Business Association to establish the festival.
“In time, with the hard, dedicated work of many volunteers it grew into a major event,” which often served as a homecoming of sorts for friends and family who purposed the festival for reunions, Reynolds said.
“Hopefully, it is just a temporary halt and will resume in another year,” Reynolds said.
Hilliard City Manager Michelle Crandall expressed similar sentiments.
“Festivals of this size and scope are not easy to produce, especially with a volunteer staff. Our hope is that this longstanding Hilliard tradition returns next year,” Crandall said.
City staff is to continue discussion with the Hilliard Civic Association to forge a path to a successful return of the event in 2024, Crandall said.
The city had planned to assist the festival this year through sponsoring music performances and reducing special-event fees levied for public events, Crandall said.
Libby Gierach, president and CEO of the Hilliard Area Chamber of Commerce, likewise said the chamber was saddened to learn of the cancellation of an “iconic flagship festival (that) has been a staple in our community.”
Gierach credited the Civic Association with “elevating” the annual festival and that the Chamber is “always willing to collaborate with our community partners” to continue making Hilliard “a place for business and family memories.”
I worked everyone from ‘85 to 2013. I originally worked with Otie Blankenship to get it off the ground. Rather than cancel it they should have reduced its size to Main from Norwich to Madison as it was originally designed. It got too large to manage.