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WEEKEND AT MARTHA'S:
DEAD
It would be so easy to just say, "I told you so," and be done with it, but I can't.  I am sad that the Crystal
Beach Festival has gone from a promising celebration of the Renaissance of Crystal Beach to a funeral for its
future.  There are a few of us (Martha was not even living here at the time,) who remember the first so-called
"Memories Day" held in the devastated Queen's Circle in Crystal Beach.  It was a hastily thrown together
gathering to mourn the passing of the Crystal Beach Amusement Park and to try to make something positive
come from the experience.  That was in 1997.  The first was a surprise success and, over the next couple of
years, the CB Festival grew and improved.  In 2001 though, the organizers decided to move the event to the
newly finished Waterfront Park despite objections from businesspeople along Derby Road and myself.  In
protest, I staged at make-shift art festival along Derby Road.  The people who came to the art festival thought
it was the Crystal Beach Festival and when we told them where the festival was located, they were puzzled
and said things like, "This is where it should be."  It must be stated that the summer of 2001 there was an
epidemic of this thinking by festival organizers.  That year, the Friendship Festival and the Loch Sloy Highland
Games were both moved to the parking lot at the Fort Erie Race Track - another in the long line of attempts
to prop up the crippled track.  Those two festivals returned to the dusty parking lot for another year until
sanity prevailed and they were moved back to their original venues.  The Loch Sloy Games became the Celtic
Festival, but it never fully recovered from its move from Old Fort Erie and closed down permanently a couple
of years ago.
After the debacle of the 2001 Crystal Beach Festival, I soon became persona non grata with the Crystal
Beach Improvement Area, so I sent then mayor Redekop a letter about my concerns about the festival.  That
was before 9/11.  After that, I couldn't have cared less about a small town festival, but I did agree to a
meeting with the mayor and CBIA Chair, the late Lorraine Murphy.  Prior to 9/11, I had prepared a detailed
outline of a creative arts festival to be staged in Queen's Circle replete with an art show, music festival and the
usual fare that would make the festival unique to Crystal Beach.  Derby Road would be blocked from Erie to
circle, similar to he blocking of Ridge Road in Ridgeway during the Ridgeway Festival.  Other events, such as
a beach volleyball tournament could take place on the public beach and other activities could be planned for
the Waterfront Park as well, but the epicentre of the event would always be Queen's Circle because that's
where Crystal Beach was born over a hundred years ago - as a Chatauqua at a circle named for then Queen
Victoria.
The next summer, the event returned to Queen's Circle and many of the suggestion I made in the plan were
implemented and the event seemed to be a great success.  The next couple of years, the event was
well-attended, as well.  Enter Martha Lockwood who was working for the Crystal Beach Candy Company
and decided that she was an event planner and soon injected herself into the planning of the festival.  When
she was elected as councillor for Ward 5 in 2006, she used her new power to insist that the Crystal Beach
Festival be moved back to the Waterfront Park.  There was a SNAFU regarding the reservation of the park
for the two days and the festival had to be scaled back to one day.  It was not well-attended.  Undaunted,
Martha continued to insist that the festival remain in Waterfront Park despite protests from tax-paying
business owners in the Beach who, once again, were being left out of the opportunity to take advantage of the
attendees at the festival - unless they wanted to pay to rent a booth at the festival.  So, this year, Martha and
Company convinced the Station 6 Firefighters to move their carnival to the Waterfront Park on Saturday
night, July 26, 2008. Station 6 shared in the fate that befell the Crystal Beach Festival.  Yes,  the Weekend at
Martha's was dead.  R.I.P. Crystal Beach Festival.
Somewhere, in the conventional wisdom of event planning is a Golden Rule:

NEVER MOVE A SUCCESSFUL EVENT TO ANOTHER VENUE UNLESS A
NATURAL DISASTER PREVENTS ITS RETURN TO ITS ORIGINAL SITE.

Even the people of New Orleans knew that simple fact.  When  Hurricane Katrina
devastated most of the city, the French Quarter was spared the worst of the flooding.  
Had it been necessary to move because of Katrina,  Fat Tuesday would have returned
to its roots as soon as possible.  It carried on anyways, in its original location,
although scaled down due to curcumsdtances.  It is slowly returning to its former glory
as the city around the French Quarter rebuilds.
Here's another example of this kind of mistake:  back in the late 1990s, a community-minded person named
Kim Gallagher decided to organize an Easter Egg Hunt in Crystal Beach.  With little or no help from anyone,
she organized a very well-attended hunt at Queen's Circle on the Saturday before Easter.  The people who
were "running things" in the Beach recognized a winning event and took it over - then moved it to the Crystal
Beach Motel, owned by one of the board members of the original CBIA.  It soon died from lack of interest.  
It has been revived by the FOCB and held at the CB Public School every Eastertime.
Back when I was an accepted member of the CBIA, I did suggest that the End of Summer Parade be
resurrected but that idea was pooh-poohed mainly, I thought at the time, because it was an American
tradition, not appreciated by the CBIA Board, unfamiliar with the event.  What it was, was  a booze-soaked
and fun farewell to the summer by all the young Americans who flocked to Crystal Beach and spent
thousands of dollars in the community renting ramshackle cottages; staging huge parties; and helping make the
Ridgeway Beer Store the second-most profitable beer store in all of Ontario.  Thank goodness the FOCB
has revived the tradition and it will continue to grow as long as organizers remember its roots and its spirit
which I'm confident they will.  It has been re-invented as a family-friendly event and grows every year.
Martha has a big lesson to learn from this disaster and that is humility, something she seems to have in short
supply of late. Maybe she might find that booklet/plan that I presented to the mayor back in 2001 and read it.
Or maybe resign.  Yes, I like that option.