01/31/2024
To Our Dear Patrons, Vendors, and Entertainers - Our Fairemily,
It has been our privilege to serve and work with you since our very first festival back in 2015. Together, we have accomplised many things for the Grand Lake o' the Cherokees areaand each of you have been so incredibly special and dear to us. Alas, all good things must come to and end and the end has come for Grand Lake Renaissance Festival for four huge and interrelated reasons.
First, we have been unable to secure the needed indoor venue to house our festival. We made a commitment to be Oklahoma's only indoor festival so that we could operate in the bleak time between the joy of the holidays and the first burst of Spring color - and we are unable to keep that commitment to you, our volunteers, and our staff.
Secondly, two of our board members have been very ill with COVID-19 and while our CTO, Nathan, is recovering well, our CEO, Kittye is not. Even breathing while at rest is taxing and has cost a severe loss of income from her professional nursing job - the job that has provided the operating capital for the yearly Festival since it's inception in 2014 - but something that she can no longer feasibly do. Coupled with the fact that winters in Oklahoma are growing far worse, not better, has led the Board of Directors to make some very tough decisions and changes, changes that will also impact our CFO, Pam.
Third, as some of you may have heard, Vinita is getting it's own theme park - the "American Heartland Theme Park, " a cross between a kitschy Branson, Mo dinner show and Disneyland - and it is being built four miles from the home office of Williams Entertainment Company. Every day we witness more long time Craig county families, farmers, and ranchers selling their homes, farms, and ranches ahead of everything this theme park will bring into the local rural area - including annexation into either the newly set Vinita city limits (six miles from the present day city limits and edge of town) or, like ourselves, facing being annexed into the town limits of Ketchum, Oklahoma. Even the animal sale barn in Vinita is now up for sale; yes, Craig county is very rural and is heavily reliant upon our farmers and ranchers when the tourists leave the Lake's shores. Why are we sharing this all this non-Grand Lake Renaissance Festival information with you?
Because, 2024 was to be the year we purchased local, Grand Lake area land to begin building our permanant site. A site where our vendors could build their own shops, where our stages would've been crafted with covered, weather resistant seating for patrons as well as secure, fully enclosed back stage areas for our performers and plenty of rest areas across the festival grounds for our patrons and performers, plus a Guild Hall to host all of our future planned events in - everything the Company needed to provide year round entertainment for you. With the advent of this theme park, land that was once considered affordable for locals like ourselves to purchase, skyrocketed to now cost millions of dollars - and not just the land with highway frontage as we needed but tracts of land off of the highway and stretching back along dirt and paved county roads.
An unforeseen hazard none of us anticipated were sponsorships for small events like ours drying up due to local and regional businesses saving their sponsorship monies to spend on this new theme park. Meaning that educational and artistic projects such as ours will continue to struggle until they utterly fail, when pitted against animatronic banjo playing beavers and Las Vegas style pirate stunt shows. We can't fiscally compete against this sparkle and shine, nor want to, as that slice of the entertainment industry is not what this Company and GLRF were created for, nor what we, as long standing Ren Fest reenactors and performers, stand for.
Lastly, we are not getting younger and there are places we want to see, things we want to do and places we want to live where we feel alive and a part of something - something we can no longer do in this part of the country. Added to these "wants" is an opportunity for Kittye in her professional career and advanced education. The only downside - if it could be deemed a downside, is that Kittye's opportunity doesn't lie in Oklahoma but in south Florida and requires a relocation of her household.
Thus, it is with bittersweet feelings we announce that we are ceasing any and all operations of Grand Lake Renaissance Festival effective immediately; however, Williams Entertainment Company isn't going anywhere anytime soon, just relocating. Once settled in our new home area, we will see what new Festival opportunities arise, you never know, there may be a new Ren Fest or Pirate Fest in South Florida or the Florida Keys ... time will tell.
As all Rennies know, we don't say "Goodbye," but rather, "See you down the road" and "Until next our paths cross!" So to all of you from all of us - stay safe, take care of yourself, look after others and never stop dreaming!
With Many Thanks and Grateful Hearts,
Kittye, Pamala and Nathan
Williams Entertainment Company Board of Directors
