If you were planning on heading to Fennville on Friday, looking for vestiges of the town’s long running Goose Festival at Fourth Friday, you’ll be embarking on a wild goose chase of sorts.
The festival celebrated its 40th anniversary last October, but a lack of volunteers to run it threatened to permanently close the popular event this year. So, officials touted a scaled down goose event to be held during the town’s Fourth Friday activity this month. The pause in the festival, they hoped, would allow for organizers to regroup and come back with the full festival next year. However, now even that “gosling Festival” has been scrapped as the entire Fourth Friday event has been cancelled for September, Samuel Jacobs, acting city administrator said.
The goose (festival), it seems, has been cooked this year.
Jacobs, who is Fennville’s city clerk/deputy city administrator, is serving as acting city administrator because city administrator Katie Beemer is out on medical leave. He cited the town’s small staff being stretched thin as the reason Fourth Friday has been canceled this month.
“We just don’t have the staff capacity to make it work— to bring the quality event that we would like to bring to the city,” Jacobs said. “That is why we are not doing it.”
Over the summer, official said they hoped that a possible hiatus in the long-term festival would inspire a new crop of volunteers to come forward to bring the beloved Goose Festival back next year. But now, asked what the plans are for the festival next year, Jacobs replied: “I cannot comment on that right now. I don’t have a comment.”
Fun seekers can still enjoy the carnival which has been part of the goose festival and was a hit with families. “The carnival is still coming to town, but the school is taking it on their property,” Jacobs said. “They are hosting what is called Fall Carnival. It is not Goose Festival.”
The carnival will be held October 10-12 along Memorial Drive at the school campus, Casey Boeve, public relations specialist for Fennville Public Schools, said. Officials are still deciding whether the carnival will be open in the afternoon and evening of October 9 as school is still in session on that date, she added.
