RAVENNA, Neb. (KSNB) – Friday morning, crews could be seen setting up the Midway Carnival on Main Street in Ravenna for the weekend-long Annevar Festival.
Workers could be seen setting up anything from carnival rides to food stands, and even a few local residents just sat on some benches to watch the set-up process. While excitement has hit a fever pitch in Ravenna, local chamber officials say it’s been building for quite some time.
<Rylie Mills, Executive Director – Ravenna Chamber of Commerce>
”Excitement starts weeks and maybe sometimes months in advance,” said Rylie Mills, the executive director for the Ravenna Chamber of Commerce. “It is a huge process that takes a huge amount of people, and there are so many moving parts and wheels. It’s chaos, but we do a pretty good job of managing it.”
The annual festival draws in big crowds every year, including several people from outside Nebraska.
”We always hear good things,” Mills said. “We have people definitely travel from out of state. We sent our advertising for the bull-riding and demo derby to go to all surrounding states and the advertisement for the demo derby was viewed on Facebook over 40,000 times.”
Even staff over at the Ravenna Golf Club say they hope the increase in visitors brings a boost in people signing up for tee times over the weekend, but the small town won’t be done with busy weekends after Annevar is all wrapped up. In fact, Mills says it’s more about getting ready for the next show in town.
”It’s a busy weekend, and I say ‘oh after this weekend is good,’ but honestly July 12th we have the circus coming to town,” Mills said. “Then we go right into junk jaunt promotions and by the time junk jaunts are done, hey it’s Christmas. After Christmas, we start over and do it all over again, so we stay busy year-round. We’re always going.”
Copyright 2022 KSNB. All rights reserved.
