In a state where most festivals are calculated to lure tourists, Durango’s Snowdown is that rarity, an event by locals and for locals.
Starting Wednesday, Snowdown celebrates its 31st year as a deliberately eccentric event. Snowdown 2009 has more than 60 contests and challenges, including a frosty outdoor plunge into an inflatable pool filled with beer, and the Snowdown Follies, an amateur talent show so popular that its 2,000 tickets sold out before Thanksgiving.
The Snowdown Follies long ago outgrew one theater. This week, the Follies will be staged in two theaters, with an A cast and a B cast that switch stages at intermission.
Over the years, people added events. Some are born as inside jokes, like the Fashion Do’s and Don’ts Show, which embraces a USA Today article that described Durango as the worst-dressed city in the U.S.
This year’s un-fashion show, like most of the Snowdown events, takes advantage of the festival’s 2009 theme — “Snowdown On Da Nile,” reminding any couture-conscious locals, “There’s more to fashion than loincloths, tunics and sandals.”
More events: Spellebration, a team spelling contest; the Merry Peggers Cribbage competition; the Polar Beer Plunge; a Burp-Off; and Roller Races — an indoor sprint thats pits cyclists against one another on bikes mounted on stationary trainers.
“For Snowdown, everyone’s invited to dream up some kind of event that will get people out on the street,” said Terry Fiedler, who has organized Snowdown since its beginning in 1979.
“Especially back when we started, January was the deadest time of the year. Everyone in town was bored to tears. The thought was, ‘Let’s do it, and make it a locals thing, and if tourists come, too, then good for us.’ We get some people coming from Farmington, N.M., and surrounding areas, but Snowdown’s not a major attraction. If only a dozen people get together for an event and have a grand time, then so be it.”
Watch footage (PG-13) of the Polar Beer Plunge: .php?id=6. For more information on the festival, go to .
Claire Martin, The Denver Post
