Kinzua ROCKED the Wake
The Allegheny National Forest and Warren County visitors bureaus hosted a unique and wildly successful Kinzua Rocks the Wake to close out the summer this Labor Day weekend.
The event, hosted at Allegheny National Forests’ Kinzua Beach, had an estimated 20,000 to 25,0000 people in attendance, according to ANFVB Executive Director Rustin Lippincott.
The Chippewa Lake Water Ski Show Team.
“The numbers that we had from Saturday’s traffic, using the common multiplier of two and a half people per car, we have a rough estimate of 10,000 for Saturday. I know from the vendors’ comments and my own experiences that there were a little bit more even on Sunday and of course we are still waiting on today’s numbers (Monday),” said Lippincott. “I know that in the short time that I have been here, I’ve never seen anything in the entire Northwest Pennsylvania region that has created this kind of buzz.”
The ANFVB team, consisting of Debbie Deane, Turina Martin and Lippincott, worked tirelessly with former executive director of the Warren County Visitors Bureau, Casey Ferry, since the July 1 approval of a Pennsylvania state grant to organize and market the event.
According to Lippincott, marketing campaigns run on television, in print media and on the radio in areas such as Erie and Buffalo, N.Y., as well as aggressive social media campaigns helped spread the word about the upcoming event throughout the summer months and ended up bringing visitors from Alaska, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, New York and Canada.
“The list of where attendees this weekend were traveling from goes on and on. They came to experience a little bit of the beauty and atmosphere that we get to call home,” said Lippincott.
The Labor Day weekend event featured family-fun entertainment, including multiple daily performances from the Chippewa Lake Water Ski Show Team and Ski Extreme Flyboard & Jet Ski as well as comedy magic performances by Mr. Kazam and Brenden Trojan. Live musical entertainment was provided by Dan Roche, Miranda Wilcox, the Ultimate Garth Brooks Tribute, Kallie Williams, Interstate Daydream, the Classic Rock Experience, Doug Ribley and Marty’s Bubble Gum Machine.
Interstate Daydream performed Sunday.
In addition to all the live entertainment, both on stage and in the water, there were multiple food and beverage vendors to enjoy and live animal exhibits hosted by Fred the Snake Guy and Birds of Prey.
“I wanted to make sure that everyone could find something that they could gravitate towards when we put this event together. We had this vision that we wanted to culminate each day with a large, fun public concert — so on Saturday night we did country music with the Ultimate Garth Brooks Tribute and then on Sunday night we did classic rock with The Classic Rock Experience,” said Lippincott. “You know when I take a step back and I really take a look at what we accomplished here, it really, really feels good knowing that we had something for everyone and that everyone really came out and enjoyed themselves.”
According to Lippincott, this event would not have been successful without the help of “marketing extraordinaire Kathleen Berghausen, Allegheny Site Management’s Ed Prince, former Warren County Visitor Bureau Director Ferry and the entire staff of the ANFVB.”
For more information about the event, or tourism in McKean County, go to visitANF.com.
