Departing from Downtown Home, Herndon Festival to Change Location Next Year

by Fatimah Waseem June 4, 2018 at 12:00 pm 8 Comments

Departing from its longstanding home in downtown Herndon, next year’s Herndon Festival will take place at the Northwest Federal Credit Union campus (200 Spring Street).

Due to a 2017 agreement with Comstock, the property that housed the festival carnival will be under construction beginning late 2018 or early 2019. As a result of limited space, an alternative site was found. Other areas of downtown Herndon are expected to also undergo construction.

It is unclear if the festival will ever return to the downtown area.

“Once the redevelopment project is complete, town staff will assess what new events or activities will be appropriate and attractive to the community. The Herndon Festival, as we know it today, likely will not return to the downtown area, due to the loss of the open space to host the carnival and considerable number of vendor, sponsor and volunteer booths required,” according to a statement by town officials.

Sans the charm of downtown buildings as a backdrop and grassy spaces for concert seating, county officials expect next year’s festival will feature different programming that will keep the event “fresh and interesting” for the audience.

County officials will not consider removing the carnival from the festival in order to keep the event in downtown Herndon because the carnival generates 45 percent of total revenues from the festival.

“Without a carnival the event would have to be curtailed in enough ways that it would not resemble what we now know as the Herndon Festival,” according to town officials.

Photo by Mikey Tate

RVA_101

Why even call it Herndon Festival if it can’t be held in its own namesake downtown ffs

development is blocking one of the best hangout events of the year
HometownHerndon

Why does Herndon need to be redeveloped? Who says it isn’t great just the way it is? Why – of all places – stick the event in an generic office building’s parking lot on the edge of town? I’m all for improving the area through methodical and intelligent land development, but the current plan is extreme and seems pretty out of touch a 7-8 story parking garage in downtown? Come on.

Having the Herndon Festival in the downtown is one of the traditions (and honestly the most significant) that makes Herndon feel like an actual town – not just another northern Virginia suburb or mixed-use development. Seems the mayor, council, and the planning commission think differently. And for what, to build another Starbucks and forget about the Festival?

I’m proud to be from Herndon, and I know the value of having the Festival in downtown – bringing people together who have all kinds of different backgrounds to have fun in the heart of the community. Simple as that.

Developing the property and moving the Festival is definitely not a “success story” or whatever some may have you believe. This is the loss of community.
- The Constitutionalist
  
  I miss the old Herndon, back before the racists moved in the only thing I had to be worried about when going to Cold Stone was getting brutally murdered.
  - Willie Reston
    
    You really ought to get out of mommy’s basement more.
    - The Constitutionalist
      
      Is that what your TS fires off when you can’t come up with anything unique?
      
      Come on, you can do better than that. Try to come up with a third insult so they don’t get so stale.
- Richard
  
  I agree, but I think it’s possible to have the best of both worlds. Send the carnival to the outskirts but fill the downtown with multiple other events.
Greg

Thankfully — LONG overdue!
ah

Slowly getting pushed out of our towns. Its sad.

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