Posted on by Doug

Why We Didn’t Table At the Maumee Summer Fair in 2025

This week­end was the Maumee Summer Fair. SHoWLE was not there this year and I want­ed to explain why. The first cou­ple of years we had a booth there were great. We were on West Wayne Street and we had a lot of foot traf­fic as we were near the beer and food and the kids zone. Which is the holy tri­fec­ta…

Douglas Berger — President of SHoWLE

Then in 2023 there was a mas­sive recon­struc­tion of the down­town Maumee area and they had to shoe horn every­one into a small­er foot­print. The orga­niz­ers had us in the very back park­ing lot next to a toi­let. Foot traf­fic was very much low­er than before. We said no prob­lem that when they get the con­struc­tion done things will go back to how it was before.

In 2024, we got our appli­ca­tion in as soon as the process opened and we got the very first booth spot on Conant St and we were so hap­py. The prob­lem was they rearranged the booth space again and had them all spread up and down Conant. Our booth was at the far west­ern end of the fes­ti­val area, across from the Indoor Theater, with most of the action hap­pen­ing way down by Wayne St. Foot traf­fic was min­i­mal AND the booth next to ours was for the group try­ing to recall most of the Maumee city coun­cil. They were nice peo­ple but in their zeal to get recall peti­tions signed they would basi­cal­ly block Conant St. and what lit­tle foot traf­fic we did see was way less than if we were fur­ther east and the cit­i­zen group was­n’t next to us imped­ing the traf­fic flow.

The SHoWLE Board decid­ed to sit 2025 out. Besides not believ­ing we would have a good spot, the fact we need more than the usu­al 3 or four peo­ple to help out played a part in the deci­sion.

I looked at the lay­out they had for 2025 and it was much bet­ter than 2024. The booths were most­ly on Conant and East Wayne and that cor­ner was where they set­up the stage for the bands. I think, if we had been there this year we would have had more con­tacts and inter­est.

I think too that if the cur­rent fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is like it is now, we need to be vis­i­ble to those who sup­port our val­ues. We may not be com­mon to Maumee but we nev­er had an issue at the Summer Fair.

Let us know what you think? Should we attend the Summer Fair next year?