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USK- Pend Oreille County Commissioner Brian Smiley and Metaline Falls Mayor Tara Leininger agree that the Bigfoot festival shouldn’t get any bigger. They both talked about the situation at the Port’s June 27 Economic Development Advisory Committee meeting held at the Camas Center for Community Wellness in Usk.
Smiley, the commissioner from the North County, said the county commissioners got a report from Kelly Flanagan, president of the Pend Oreille Regional Tourism Alliance that put on the event. He also talked with the vendors and businesspeople.
“I think it went pretty well,” Smiley said of the festival. “There is a point in those events, and I think Tara can speak to this, where the community is full and the businesses are full, and that’s it. If you grow that thing, you’re going to cause problems.”
Leininger said she spoke with Flanagan, and they agreed the festival wouldn’t try to grow next year. The number of vendors would be cut back, Leininger said, although not food vendors.
“You can never have too many food vendors,” she said.
But she wanted to put a limit on the number of total vendors.
“Because we’re awful tiny,” she said, “and parking and traffic are interesting.”
Especially when you’re cutting off the main road to town, she said. Parking for events at The Cutter was a challenge.
One person got frustrated and moved a barricade and drove on.
“We did have one instance where someone literally moved a barricade, and tried to drive through honking and yelling at people,” Leininger said. She said that common sense may have been the problem in that case, but that the town was at capacity.
The event drew an estimated 6,800 people to Metaline Falls Fathers’ Day weekend, down from the year before, when about 9,000 were said to have attended. Both estimates were made using drones.
“That’s twice the number of people we would have during the Labor Day train rides,” Leininger said.
