By Brenda Pierce | The best and brightest festivals in the Southeast won awards at the Southeast Festivals and Events Association’s Kaleidoscope Awards, in Charleston, S.C., on January 26.
Overall winner of the Best Festival with budgets over $75,000 was Duluth’s Fall Festival. The awards were held in conjunction with the 13th Annual SFEA Conference. Top festivals and events throughout the southeast were recognized for their outstanding contribution to the events industry.
One of this year’s festival co-chairs, Kay Montgomery, comments: “We were thrilled for the Festival to be recognized in this way. We knew that we had a great festival, but excited to be recognized by the Southeast Festival and Events Association as the best in the area. This make us work even harder to make sure that our Festival will continue to be outstanding. We were glad to be in Charleston for the award, and only wish that our co-chair, Billy Jones, had been able to attend. ”
People crowded in Duluth during its fall festival.
Duluth also won a bronze medal for Duluth Celebrates America, and won a silver medal for Barefoot in the City in the Best Event Program, and a silver medal for Best Creative Idea for its Beach Night summer stage concert series.
Two other Gwinnett cities, Sugar Hill and Suwanee, were among the winners in the various categories.
Suwanee won a gold medal in the Best New Event category for its Big Cheesy Festival. Sugar Hill took home a bronze medal in this category for its Sugar Rush festival. Suwanee copped a silver medal for its Suwanee Fest Volunteer Planning Committee
Both Sugar Hill and Suwanee placed for Best T Shirt, Sugar Hill winning a silver for Sugar Rush, and Suwanee placing bronze for the Big Cheesy Festival.
Suwanee was named the winner of the bronze award for its Suwanee Fest event.
“The quality of submissions continues to increase each year making it more difficult for the judges to select the winners,” noted Brenda Pierce, executive director for SFEA. “Of course, to ‘win gold,’ becomes all the sweeter when there is additional competition and the recognition a festival receives for winning is priceless.”
The name “kaleidoscope” was selected due to the colors in the logo image that represent the many different elements and facets within festivals and events. A call for entries was posted last fall and all southeast festivals and events were encouraged to participate. A panel of experts in event planning, marketing and tourism spent an entire day reviewing the entries from five states. The judges looked for originality, creativity, media impact, volunteer programs, and the overall impact to the community. The categories, in which one can win recognition, are also diverse, ranging from Best Marketing Campaign to Best T-Shirt to Best Festival or Event.
- For a complete list of other city winners, click here.
Follow Us