Festival venue gets mostly good reviews

Last weekend’s Montana Dragon Boat Festival featured favorable weather, teams and spectators from around the country and a new venue at Volunteer Park in Lakeside.

Diane Medler, director of the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau, deemed the event a success with positive feedback from spectators and paddlers.

“We felt very positive about it,” Medler said. “People could be down in the action and see the race from start to finish.”

While the event bolstered revenue for food vendors on site at the festival, several Lakeside businesses felt shut out and over-prepared for the event.

Josh Townsley, owner of Tamarack Brewing Co. in Lakeside, said it was just part of the learning curve in bringing a new event to Lakeside.

“The event itself was good, but very self-contained. It was the first year and no one knew what to expect,” Townsley said.

Townsley said Tamarack, like several other Lakeside businesses, stocked up on extra inventory and staff in preparation for the festival but were left hanging as spectators mostly stayed on site at the event.

“It’s Murphy’s Law: Everyone prepared for a big onslaught and the onslaught didn’t really materialize,” Townsley said. “I just feel horrible about some of the small businesses with the bigger inventory and labor they staffed, just like we did. I think everyone just had it a little bigger in their mind than it was.”

Lakeside-Somers Chamber of Commerce President David Fetveit said it’s hard to prepare for an event like the Dragon Boat Festival; nobody can really force people off-site between races.

“If the biggest problem was that we were over-prepared, then those are good problems to have,” Fetveit said. “We worked as hard as we could to engage our local businesses, but there’s only so much you can do with the spectators.”

Medler said efforts were made to promote Lakeside businesses.

“We identified every restaurant in Lakeside; we encouraged people to go out and enjoy the community, our emcee announcer reminded people to do that as well,” Medler said. “Not all paddlers have time to go out between races and get food.”

Medler said the bureau will begin planning next year’s event with adequate infrastructure in mind to make the event successful for local businesses as well.

While attendance is hard to calculate, Fetveit said free parking, one of the biggest sellers for spectators at the festival, was available throughout the weekend.

“We were concerned about parking and traffic,” Fetveit said. “The takeaway for me was that there was plenty of capacity. We could have doubled the attendance at the event and been fine.”

Fetveit said he’s looking forward to talking with Lakeside business owners and residents to get feedback on the event.

He plans to compile community feedback for a debriefing meeting with the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau. The debriefing date hasn’t been set, but Fetveit also will be looking for feedback at the next West Shore Visitors Bureau meeting on Sept. 23 and the next Lakeside-Somers Chamber of Commerce meeting on Sept. 29.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.