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Date: 7/10/2015
CHICOPEE – Thomas Kielbania Jr. is looking of a new location of his Chicopee Kielbasa Festival.
The man who successfully revitalized the long dormant Polish fest wrote on Facebook on July 5 “Looking for a new Chicopee venue to hold the Kfest for future events. I’ve exhausted all city park options and I’m thinking private land or a special event place would be cool. Westover, malls and city parks are out for possible venues. What’s left?”
He had a number of people making suggestions.
Kielbania confirmed to Reminder Publications he is looking for a new location. For the past two years, the festival has been presented in Szot Park and although this year the festival attracted 30,000 people Kielbania believes he needs to give the neighborhood surrounding the park a break.
He said having the festival in the city’s largest park presents “too many variables.” He also noted the park, while a great venue, “is not set up for such an event.”
Weather is a large factor for his success. He explained that if it had rained two days out of the festival’s run, he would have lost $50,000.
He sees the success of this year’s festival as proof to it popularity. He said he donated $3,000 to the American Red Cross out of the proceeds.
Kielbania also gave away more than 7,000 tickets. He also structured discounts for children and students and gave away 350 passes for children to ride the carnival rides.
He said his efforts to make the festival affordable and to make a donation to a charity is part of “trying to bring the community together.”
Kielbania thanked Marty Topor of Central Oil for making a $6,000 donation of fuel for the festival generators and said the festival “wouldn’t have been possible without it.”
He also noted there were no incidents at the festival.
“Overall, it was a great effort,” Kielbania said.
He said he has looked at a variety of locations in the city for the festival including property owned by Western Massachusetts Development, Westover Air Reserve Base and the Chicopee Moose Family Center. He said the biggest issue concerns liability insurance and which entity would assume it.
He stressed, “The city has been fine to deal with.”