Red Carpet Country Tourism Conference

Oct. 7, 2015
Yesterday I spent the day in Woodward OK at the RED CARPET COUNTRY TOURISM CONFERENCE, and came home reignited and inspired.  I made a lot of contacts there.  And every one of the speakers reinforced and confirmed that we have the bones for what can be a fabulous tourist destination -- the state park, the winery, live music, two different bed & breakfasts, and historical spaces; the town leaders need to all work together to make good things happen.  Andy and I have tried to work with the Chamber of Commerce and have gotten nowhere, so all we can do is continue to push forward by ourselves.  We have lots of supporters but it is sad that the civic group that is charged with working to promote our town is not doing its job.
The Cheese Festival is coming up this weekend and there are lots of frustrated people in town over the lack of communication and information and promotion of the event.  One thing that struck me at the tourism conference yesterday was the statement that our audience, the group that we, as a town, an event, a business, should be targeting are NOT the local population, but people from out of town, out of state.  Yet this year the Chamber didn't advertise with Travel OK, Red Carpet Country Tourism, Oklahoma Tourism, or any other statewide event guide.  I tried to get them to let me post the event on the tourism facebook page and Red Carpet Country website, but they weren't interested.
Andy and I are getting calls and email messages daily, asking us questions about what/where/when, and all we can do is give them the phone number for the Chamber office.  Then we get calls back saying they've left a message and aren't getting a call back from the Chamber; and then more calls saying that the Chamber voice mail is full and so they can't leave a message there.  Most of the artists who have exhibited at the Art Show for years have not been contacted.  The Canton Schools student art that has been a part of the Art Show for the past ten years has been excluded from the Art competition, and so they will not be exhibiting their work this year.  That is sad because those students create some fabulous works of art.  This past year they worked with a well-known Oklahoma artist, Patrick Riley, and made masks.  Drew and Jenna were asked to judge the masks, since they didn't know any of the students and could be impartial.  They were all wonderful!  It is unfortunate that the masks will not be shown at the Cheese Festival.  As of this posting, nobody seems to know where the Art Show is going to be, not even the local newspaper.  I saw the festival tent going up today (Wednesday), and it is blocking the winery--unfortunate since the wine aspect of the festival has been growing over the past couple of years and lack of access to the local store could leave a bad taste in some mouths (pun intended). 

The Rat Race seems to be well organized, and the cheese tasting and food contest are on track.  The Kiwanis is lined up to sell cheese on both days, at the Armory and in a building on Main Street.  But the Chamber lost their partnership with Race the Rail, which was a unique and well-attended event and a huge money-maker from the festival--that was $5 a head for over 200 registrants that the Chamber lost.  We are going to work with the organizers of the Race to try and keep the bicycle event here in future years and hope for the best. 

Speaking of tourism, we received a call from the local Oklahoma tourism show, Discover Oklahoma, saying they would like to come out to the Chaparral Retreat and shoot some film for one of their episodes.  We are so excited -- this is what we've been working towards for a couple of years!!!  We have a full house this weekend, and next weekend we are hosting the 2014 Oklahoma poet laureate, Nathan Brown, for an Oklahoma House Concert.