‘Wasted a whole trip to Palatka:' Some Blue Crab Festival guests mad about pricey food, no carnival
They said the annual three-day festival featured high food prices, fewer vendors, and no carnival like they had in previous years.
The Palatka Blue Crab Festival is an annual tradition, and has been for nearly 30 years.
However, this year some festival goers were left disappointed with this year's event.
'It made me feel like I wasted a whole trip to Palatka,' festival attendee Andie Dann said. 'I'm wondering if I'm going to attend, you know, next year or any years, you know, after this one.'
Dann has been attending the Palatka Blue Crab Festival for 20 years. Some of the complaints she and other people had were about the high food prices.
'This is a small-town festival. We don't need big city prices,' Dann said.
Larissa Ricketts-Owens owns Modern Reality in downtown Palatka. She has been attending the festival for years, and was shocked to see how expensive the food was this year.
'I got one of the lobster rolls from the one of the food trucks down by the band shell, and it was $39 for a lobster roll that literally had four pieces of lobster on it with a stale bun,' Ricketts-Owens said.
Another photo sent to Action News Jax shows a King Crab leg an attendee purchased at the festival over the weekend. They said it cost them $50.
For the last four years, the festival has been produced by Ancient City Entertainment. The City of Palatka is one of the festival's main sponsors.
Eddie Cutwright is the Community Affairs Director for the City of Palatka. He says the city had no role in determining the prices.
'The city was not in charge of anything that had to do with the event,' Cutwright said. 'We just help her (Ancient City Entertainment) with staffing and also blocking off roads for the event. Any vendors, anything that came through that area was placed and reserved spots through her.'
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We reached out to Ancient City Entertainment and they provided us with a statement:
'My name is Jeanetta Cebollero, I've been the director of Palatka Blue Crab Festival the past 4 years, where we have since revitalized the town's branding, marketing. I worked very hard to bring in national acts and include new amusements and vendors.
'I've worked alongside the City of Palatka for 4 years to execute this project. Each year, they have made significant funding cutbacks and had a staggering administrative employment turnover rate that had disproportionately affected the success of the event.
'This year, specifically, the City of Palatka chose to make some very distinct changes regarding the footprint of the festival to appease the merchants of St. Johns Ave. This moved paying vendors to a marina space where we had previously booked a carnival in years past. They chose not to move forward with the carnival. They also voted to not allocate any marketing dollars to the event this year from The Tourism Development Council, which has been crucial in the past for the implementation of success in driving visitors to their flagship and largest tourism event of the year.
'After trying for 8 months to get them to approve a contract, they finally decided on a minimal effort approach.
'To put it mildly, we are disappointed in the partnership renewal contract that was decided by City of Palatka commissioners, but would love to acknowledge the hard work of the sanitation workers, parks and recreation, and festival workers and organizers who are the actual boots on the ground.
Best,
Jeanetta Cebollero
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In regard to the carnival and footprint changes referenced in Ancient City Entertainment's statement, Wright said that a conversation was had between them about the decision.
'Other than the foot traffic of bringing it down to 4th Street, that was a common conversation that we had early on as a group. And that was just to try to accommodate some things when we said we was not bringing, when she said, and we agreed that they was not bringing the carnival back because we had some issues with the carnival last year. But that's how that foot track got smaller. But as far as vendors and everything of that nature, that's all the coordinator's responsibility,' Cutwright said.
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