Downtown Frankfort is still a quiet town of 18,000 these days. But, for nearly a year, it has been a buzz of activitiy behind the scenes – inside garages, in offices and board rooms, at kitchen tables, through email and text messages.
At last, the swarm of yellow-shirted volunteers are ready for “showtime.”
The 48th annual Frankfort Fall Festival is underway. Following the start of the carnival on Wednesday and the Lions Club’s 35th annual Wurst Fest Thursday, the entertainment and beer tent open for business Friday. Beginning Saturday, arts and crafts exhibitors will display their wares. A parade is set for 1 p.m. Sunday. The fest continues through Labor Day.
Planning for the multiday event began last October, said Alicia Joebgen, Frankfort Chamber of Commerce executive director. Proceeds from the fest benefit the chamber and some 20 civic groups, she said.
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Cindy Heath, former festival chairman, said, “You don’t bring a couple hundred thousand (250,000-300,000) people to a town this small without some extensive planning.”
Heath also helped her husband, Alan Heath, chair the festival for two years. She is now helping for her 34th year.
This year’s director, Andrew Wright, said: “The key is that you don’t let up on the gas pedal. You just keep going.”
On festival weekend he expects to keep going from before dawn to well past sunset each of the days.
The Frankfort event has been consistently recognized as one of the top art and craft festivals in the country by Sunshine Artist magazine, a trade publication for the artisan industry.
Nearly 300 artisans from 20-plus states will be coming to town to sell their work this year.
Robert Linn of Edmond, Okla. is one of them. He has been selling his hand crafted Appalachian bow saws at the Frankfort Fall Festival for more than 10 years, he said.
Linn shows nationwide, from San Francisco to Naples, Fla.
“Frankfort is one I look forward to,” he said. “They treat the artists great. The patrons are always friendly. The Chamber is well organized, and the crowds are good.”
Penny Ploski and her fiance, Bill Wachter, are two of the town’s volunteers assigned to taking care of the visiting artists.
“We are just a peg in the wheel,” said Ploski, a longtime Frankfort resident. “We’ve only been volunteering for four years.”
But this year Ploski and Wachter are block captains in charge of a block with 50 vendors.
“We make sure they’re happy the whole time, from getting them in and setting up, to making sure they have sandwiches for lunch and somebody to sit in their booth while they run to the facilities,” Ploski said.
“It takes an army…. And then on the Tuesday morning after, it’s like it never happened. It’s unbelievable how fast it gets cleaned up,” Ploski said.
Although the artisans are the biggest draw, people also come for the carnival rides, the entertainment, the parade with 90 entries, the food and the beer tent.
Wright got to choose the theme in exchange for agreeing to be chairman. This year’s motto is “Happy Days.”
“What does the festival take? Hard work and volunteers, volunteers, volunteers and more volunteers. And thick skin,” Wright said.
“There is not a day that goes by in the year when someone is not working on Fall Fest,” said Wright, a sales director for Sony Electronics who has lived in town for 16 years.
“People do it because they believe in their friends and their community. You say ‘yes,’ once and then you get the fever.”
Joebgen says the festival runs smoothly despite massive crowds and many cars because they have plans for everything.
“You know how it happens because you’ve been planning for every detail for so long,” she said. “But you don’t know how it happens. Suddenly it’s the Tuesday morning after and it’s gone. You’d never even know it happened. It’s because every individual, every entity, does their part.”
The one thing Frankfort folks don’t talk about in all those meetings is “the R (rain) word.”
“The R word is not allowed,” Joebgen said. “But if it happens we have plans for that too.”
Joan Cary is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
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Frankfort Fall Fest
When: Through Sept. 5; Carnival opens Aug. 31; Wurst Fest is Sept. 1; Beer tent and entertainment opens Sept. 2; Artisan booths Sept. 3, 4 and 5.
Where: Downtown Frankfort
Cost: No entry fee
Information: www.frankfortfallfestival.info