FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 2, 2011
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/zilker
AUSTIN HOLIDAYFEST IN ZILKER PARK
TO FEATURE TREE LIGHTING, FOOD VENDORS,
COMMUNITY GROUP PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE BEING FINALIZED
Austin, TX —Austin HolidayFest has been announced as the December 4 – 11 Holiday event that will be held in Zilker Park and kicked off with the City Tree Lighting. Austin HolidayFest will feature the annual Holiday Tree lighting custom along with Santa’s House, and food and novelty vendors. A schedule of local community groups is being finalized.
This year’s community holiday event will no longer include Trail of Lights due to a shortfall in funding. The return of Trail of Lights in 2011 depended on community and business sponsorship contributions to make the event possible. Despite considerable effort by the event’s sponsorship and management team, a pre-event milestone to reach $250,000 in cash contributions prior to November 2 has not been achieved. It costs nearly $1 million to produce the event.
Amy Vercruysse and Candace Miller, Executive Co-Producers of Trail of Lights Austin, cite the difficult economy as the reason for the shortfall, saying in a joint statement, “With months of hard work reaching out to thousands of business leaders in Austin, an enormous effort went into procuring sponsors to fund the event this year. In the end it came down to difficult economic circumstances and budgets that were tapped.”
They go on to say, “We are so thankful for the great support expressed for the return of Trail of Lights by the community; for the tireless work by our wonderful team and the City of Austin; and to those sponsors who committed to the event, including Seton Healthcare Family, H-E-B, ImageCraft Exhibits, Community Impact News, Hotze Runkle Law Firm, Discount Electronics, Electric Monkey, As Such Communications, Tech Ranch, the Kucera Companies, and dozens of contributions from local small businesses and individuals. We are deeply disappointed that we will not be able to hold the Trail of Lights event this year, but are ready to move forward on planning and fundraising for the 2012 Trail of Lights Austin.”
Fencing and build-out for Trail of Lights was scheduled to begin on November 2 at Zilker Park, resulting in the producers having to make this decision now.
Austin HolidayFest 2011 will provide a free, family-friendly holiday event for the Austin Community this December.
Trail of Lights Austin Executive Co-Producer and spokesman:
Amy Vercruysse; Amy@TrailOfLightsAustin.com
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