No midway at this year’s Morinville Festival Days

by Morinville News Staff

Morinville Festival Days are coming up June 21 to 23 but one popular draw to the annual festival will be missing. The Town announced Thursday that the company hired each year to operate the midway has decided not to do so in Morinville in 2019 and the Town was not able to procure an alternative midway operator for the Festival Days weekend.

“We understand the community will miss the midway; it was a great component to the weekend,” said Kathleen Ducharme, Events & Culture Programmer in a media release Thursday. “Sourcing alternate options for a midway or other activities in 2020 will be important to continue to strengthen the event for the community. We are working with many local community groups to put on a fantastic weekend for all to enjoy. The event schedule is full of great activities, plus they are mostly free!”

The Town says that in lieu of the midway, event organizers have coordinated with community groups and will offer a full weekend of activities they say the community can enjoy.

Returning events include the pancake breakfast, parade, live entertainment, Show ‘n’ Shine, Firefighter Combat Challenge, and beer gardens. New activities will include an Art Walk and a Longest Day of Paint event organized by the Morinville Art Club, Adventure Bus, children’s activities and a kids one-kilometre run at the Jessica Martel Memorial Run, as well as a free movie night featuring Dumbo, sponsored by Morinville News.

Morinville News will have a full story on and schedule of this year’s festival next week.

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34 Comments

    • Anthony Palmer the same midway has been coming for years .. they just decided this year that they aren’t making enough money here!

  1. Moved here last year and didn’t know about it last year and missed it and the kids have been waiting all year for it. So sad

  2. Not sure if I remember correctly, but in the past, the town had to agree to pay the midway people a certain amount of $ for them to come here. Is this correct Stephen?

  3. Hmmmm……up until last year we had a volunteer group organizing this Festival, called aptly enough, the Festival Society. This group of hard working volunteers had the time & foresight as well as experience of years & knowledge to ensure timelines & venues were well in hand so come crunch time everything is a “go” The Festival kept expanding & new ideas that started small grew into the fun for all ages Festival we came to love, enjoy & expect. Last year the Town of Morinville, for whatever undisclosed reason, summarily decided to take over the running of this festival. Major changes happened, many behind the scenes & not noticeable to the average person, but to the many volunteers who had poured countless hours & personal finances into making it what it was, heartbreaking. Fast forward to this year & another component is lost. I need to question what happened? Why did the town take over from a group that had a proven track record of efficiency & success…was it politics or ego hidden under the guise of fiscal restraint & a mistaken belief the town & its already overburdened staff could do it better than a Society with years of experience in doing just that. A mistake was made, time to admit it & bring back the gem that was. Scrambling to fill an oversight is not the way to do this, working harmoniously together is. This Festival is looked forward to all year long & greatly supported by us, the citizens of Morinville & it’s surrounding areas.
    I am also hoping that pride will not stand in the way of the Town reaching out to admit their error & allow the folks who do these things best do it going forward. One of Morinville’s greatest assets is our people & their ability to get involved, quit messing with that, please! Good luck & I hope these lessons learned over the past 2 years by the powers that be, lead to a better more inclusive solution for 2020.

    • Fiscal restraint.. goes with what I was asking. The past months/year have all been taken up with the new leisure center it seems. Sad when our population is increasing, things like the festival, are decreasing events.

    • Thank you for clearing this up. This information you provided should have been in this poorly written article.

  4. Thank you to Katherine Mary-Ellen for sharing the reason that the town lost the midway. This was a very poorly written article.

  5. Years ago, Redwater use to have a midway (which was alot of fun for families) at their Discovery Days they chose to get rid of it and have never brought it back. It’s just not the same and I’m sure they have lost alot of attendance as a result. A bouncy house just doesn’t cut it. Disappointing.😔

  6. I highly recommend for families to still come. The best part of this celebration to grab a hot dog from home hardware, walk through the show and shine over to the combat challenge and take in all the activists in that area. I think people forget that our fire department is a fantastic group of volunteers who work hard to keep us safe. Show your support to our fire department and neighbouring departments by cheering them on. My kids couldn’t care less that the midway is gone they are more excited for the other activities including the splash park!! Try it out, you wouldn’t be disappointed!!

  7. We are slowly but surely losing one event after another
    No pool for all to enjoy… instead 30 million $ sheet of ice for the few. The little fair that was !

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