POLISH DAYS
Chamber of commerce hopes that community embraces carnival’s return this summer
After years of effort and at no small expense, the carnival is expected to return to Loup City’s Polish Days in 2025.
After what’s believed to have been the better part of a decade without a carnival, the Loup City Area Chamber of Commerce has secured River City Carnival, out of St. Paul, to make their way to Loup City’s main street all three days of the annual celebration, from June 6th through the 8th, this year.
“We haven’t had a carnival for I want to say maybe seven or eight years,” noted Loup City Area Chamber of Commerce Director Jennifer Smydra in an interview on Monday. “I can’t even remember the last time we had one.
“Before I was chamber director, we somehow ended up losing the carnival that we had,” she noted, “and then we hired this other one, and it was not a good carnival.
So, we…kind of ditched it and leaned more into RockIt Event Pros type things—like rock climbing walls and bouncy houses and that kind of stuff.”
RockIt Event Pros is a party equipment rental service out of Kearney.
The chamber director said that people could expect River City to bring rides, games, and funnel cakes to downtown Loup City throughout Polish Days.
“They said it’s basically going to be a full block and an intersection of rides and games,” she noted, adding: “One thing we could never find is someone to make funnel cakes. And they will have funnel cakes.”
According to the chamber director, the chamber has been interested in bringing the carnival back to Polish Days for a number of years. Unfortunately, the demand for such services well outpaces supply.
“There are just not that many carnivals around anymore anywhere,” she said.
“It’s really hard to get on a rotation, because [the companies] have a set number of things that they go to, and if they are paid well, they don’t change it.”
The chamber director and certified public accountant said she had been talking to River City’s owner about an unrelated matter when it came up that River City Carnival had an opening that would correspond with Polish Days this year.
“I had been talking to them, because…I do some of their work,” she said. “They said, ‘By the way, we have an opening.’
“Somehow, we got on their rotation. They were able to fit Polish Days in. So, we kind of cut a deal with them.”
The last time the carnival had come to Polish Days, said Smydra, it had cost the chamber about $12,000. This time, she estimated, it would cost about $3,000 more.
“It’s going to cost about $15,000,” she said.
Although she noted that the increase was not too stark “when you consider the increase of everything” over the past few years, the chamber director also stressed that $15,000 was “not cheap.
“We’re hoping to get a chunk of it paid with some grants,” she said. “And we’re trying to look for some bigger sponsors.”
The chamber also expects to sell wrist bands to cover expenses in advance of the event.
“I think the plan is to offer a wrist band for everything, each day,” Smydra said. “I think it will be a different price each day.”
Items from Rock-It Event Pros will be returning to Polish Days this year, although in lesser number than in past years.
“We have that big water park,” she noted.
As other events will be cut to make way for the carnival, the carnival’s addition does not mean Polish Days will cost a full $15,000 more this year. But Smydra noted that it would make for a notable addition to the event’s price tag nonetheless.
As the first year in which the event will have a carnival in almost a decade, the 2025 Polish Days, said the chamber president, is expected to be a litmus test for years to come.
“We need people to show up and show us that this is something they want,” she said. “We’re always trying to do what we can to build our event and bring people to town, and we really hope that people participate.”
In general, said Smydra, Polish Days “breaks even,” and the hope for this year is that, despite the increased cost, that will continue to be the case.
The prospective dates and times for the carnival are Friday, June 6th from 2:00 until 10:00 p.m.; Saturday, June 7th from noon until 10:00 p.m.; and Sunday, June 8th from 1:00 until 5:00 p.m.
“We even have them on Sunday, and we don’t usually have a lot of things going on on Sunday,” Smydra noted.
The chamber has a planning meeting scheduled for tonight— Wednesday, February 19th— at 6:00 p.m., at which Smydra said she was hoping to get some of the finer details of the upcoming event “pinned down.”
As Polish Days draws nearer, Smydra said that the chamber would be interested in hearing from anyone who “was interested in being a bigger sponsor” or “wanted to volunteer to help,” and reiterated that she wanted to “highly encourage people to participate” in the event when it comes to town this summer.
