In the coming weeks, I will be doing some announcements at the end of the masses to bring people up to speed on the various aspects of the festival and to explain how our new fencing plan will work.  I want you to hear the news firsthand so you can help spread the word in order to minimize the number of surprises people might encounter when they show up and find things much different than last year.

First, it is important to know that we have 1,750 linear feet of temporary fencing going up on Wednesday of festival week.  The whole campus will be enclosed with an 8 foot high fence with a number of gates for entrance and exit needs.  Those who have visited some of the larger city or institutional type festivals know that enclosing a festival grounds with a fence has become rather commonplace these days.  There will only be two entrances to our festival.  One entrance will be on Overlake almost in front of the gym.  The other entrance will be in back of the Family and Youth Center on the St. Joan Street side near the entrance to the parking lots.  Many meetings have taken place with our staff, festival chairs and city officials to make sure our decisions in these matters were fully compliant with state and local ordinances.  The fencing project alone will be an added expense of about $20,000.  But we agree it is worth it.  To offset this cost, we are requiring a $1 daily admissions fee for anyone 5 years old or older.  People’s hands will be stamped when they enter to indicate they paid the daily admissions fee; as such people will be able to come and go throughout the day without having to pay the admissions fee again that day.  If you return the following day, you will be required to pay another admissions fee.  We will also offset the fencing project costs with advertising and special donations.  In addition, we will utilize turnstiles which will assist us in determining our daily attendance.  Security cameras will also be in place at the entrances and throughout our festival grounds.
 
Second:  two other rules, all of which will be highly advertised, are: 1) no one under the age of 18 will be allowed to enter the property after 6:00 p.m. each day unless they are accompanied by an adult who will be required to show a valid driver’s license or state issued identification card; and 2) no backpacks will be allowed at any time throughout the weekend.  Baby and/or diaper bags will be allowed but your normal backpacks will not.
 
To help us achieve these goals, we will need to solicit a vast team of volunteers to work the entrance gates.  The plan calls for 3 hour shifts of 16 people each to work the 2 main gates throughout the festival.  Uniformed St. Clair Shores police officers will also be present at the gates.  That means we need lots of help to make this happen.  Are you interested in helping at the gates?  If so, please contact me at 586.777.3670 or at [email protected].
 
I will continue to update the community by means of announcements at mass and/or through our email system as festival plans are finalized or tweaked.  This will be a huge learning curve for us this year because it is unlike anything we have ever done for our festival.  We’ll need everyone’s understanding and patience as we work through these various details.  Please know that these plans are being put into place so that our festival, which has been in existence for 46 years now, can continue and at the same time remain safe and family friendly.  As I said last year in my post-festival address to the parish, I will not allow the evil one to win this battle.  Christ will win.  He always wins.

Msgr. Mike



For all the latest information about the festival, visit:  www.sjascs.org/festival.