Kumquat Festival enjoys success

Organizers estimate that 32,000 people attended the event in its fourth year. Now they hope to raise the standards and focus on quality.

By CHASE SQUIRES

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 5, 2001

DADE CITY -- Going into the Jan. 27 Kumquat Festival, there were questions.

How would the event fare going head-to-head against Tampa's Gasparilla parade? How would the Super Bowl tie-in work? And would the national media find Dade City to be too far from Super Bowl hoopla?

The answers were apparent by noon, when the crowd swelled, cars were parked on every open spot of asphalt and spilled onto grassy areas around the courthouse, and vendors began selling out of popular foods.

Judging from the amount of trash left behind, organizers at a debriefing Wednesday declared the Jan. 27 Kumquat Festival, the fourth ever, the best one yet.

The event has grown so big and so popular so quickly that organizers are already talking about raising the standards, focusing on quality now that the quantity of vendors and events is so large.

Phyllis Smith, Chamber of Commerce executive director and one of the festival's organizers, said no formal visitor counts are available for the free festival. But she estimated that more than 32,000 people packed into the city's downtown.

The event drew attention not only from local news organizations but also from outlets outside the area this year. The Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper in Kansas had a full-color spread touting the sour fruit and Dade City's festival, and there was a humorous segment on a CBS weekend news show.

Going up against Gasparilla this year was probably one of the best boosts the festival could have had, Smith said.

"A lot of people came up here just to get away from all that craziness in Tampa," she said.

"This is not just a community thing anymore," organizer Roxine Barthle said. "It's getting to be a really big deal."

Now there's talk about linking the event, via Internet cameras, to the rest of the world. Organizers want to raise the quality of the arts and crafts displayed and start luring better displays to the event.

"In the past, we talked about grow, grow, grow," Barthle told the festival's steering committee after the event. "I think it's the responsibility of this committee to control, control, control. We're at a point where we need to concentrate on quality."

The event wasn't entirely without hitches.

Some vendors complained about duplicate offerings -- such as two pony-ride setups, two colored-sand-in-a-bottle booths and three sunglass vendors -- but most on the steering committee said the overall experience was positive.

The weather was perfect, there were no serious injuries and lots of people came and enjoyed, organizers reported.

Smith said a full accounting of the cash raised by the event hasn't been done yet, but she said organizers hope to create a scholarship with the money raised.

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