By Miles Hilton
This year’s Mayville Winter Festival will take place in Mayville President’s Day Weekend, February 14-16, 2025. The festival, an annual tradition celebrating the community and climate of the area, will include an ice castle, sledding hills, and multiple events at local businesses.
This year’s festival is being organized by Inspire Good of WNY, a Mayville-based nonprofit focused on community events and fundraisers. CHQ Chamber, which was previously responsible for the event, initially canceled the festival and then handed over the reins in mid-January, citing “dramatically increased expenses and increasing challenges around the hands-on support required to mount an event of this magnitude.”
Sorena Gilkinson, co-founder of Inspire Good of WNY, helped plan past Winter Festivals when she worked at the CHQ Chamber. When they announced the cancellation of this year’s festival, she and her organization were well-positioned to pick up the baton. “We all wanted to keep it,” Gilkinson shares. At a community meeting shortly after the event’s cancellation, she says community members asked if she and her nonprofit, which she co-founded in 2024 with Ariel Cartwright, would be willing to become the festival’s official sponsor.
Several of the issues encountered by the CHQ Chamber remain open questions. Inspire Good of WNY is still in conversation with their insurance provider about high-risk activities, such as fireworks, at the festival. The cost to insure such high-risk activities contributed to the “dramatically increased expenses” cited by the CHQ Chamber.
Inspire Good of WNY is leaning heavily on events sponsored by local businesses and other groups, a decentralized approach that they hope will strengthen the festival and spotlight local businesses, while distributing the cost and responsibility of taking on a festival so close to the event date. Local businesses involved in the festival include The Eclectic Bird, Music for your Mouth, The Mayberry Jungle, and She Sings Cafe. The festival will also feature food trucks and vendors. A Chautauqua Transit shuttle will run on Saturday, connecting several businesses that are hosting events.
Behind-the-scenes, Gilkinson says the transition has been going smoothly. Sponsorships, reservations, and materials have been transferred to Inspire Good of WNY by the CHQ Chamber, which said in a January 11 press release that it “expects to provide a transitional sponsorship” for the 2025 festival.
Gilkinson is “very excited” that the festival is “going to continue, and we can collaborate with so many wonderful people.” As the schedule for the festival solidifies, keep an eye on the Festival’s Facebook page, titled “The Mayville Winter Festival – President’s Day Weekend – Mayville New York,” for updates.