The annual balloon festival at Chatfield State Park, which had attracted as many as 75 colorful hot-air balloons from around the country, has closed its gates permanently.
Terry Smith, who ran the festival from 2000 through 2008, said the operations staff at Chatfield refused to renegotiate the contract, which drove her festival into the ground.
“We were paying the state more than $55,000 for one weekend a year, while we were going broke,” she said. “We asked the park operations people to negotiate the contract down by $10,000 so that we could continue. But they refused.
“They took in about $50,000 in gate fees, plus commissions and other fees. We paid for all the security personnel including police and state troopers. We paid the vendors’ commissions, we paid for everything. It cost the state next to nothing for us to hold the festival, always the weekend before Labor Day.”
On Saturday, Deb Frazier, communications manager for Colorado State Parks, said that fees from the festival organizers cover the costs to the park. She said that if you include the staff time and the work by park volunteers who prepare for the festival and cleanup afterward, the parks make a little money but over all it is “close to break even.”
Frazier said the balloon festival’s permits and fees are consistent with other state parks for comparable events, including nonprofit fundraisers.
“It’s unfair and it’s against Colorado State Parks’ policy to financially support one event, but not all events,” she said in a statement.
Frazier said festival organizers asked whether park entrants could pay $1 extra, but noted that not everyone going to the park is going to the festival. An extra fee would cause traffic tieups and “some people who go to the festival park outside the park and walk in to avoid paying the daily use fee.”
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
