This is a very good post. Much needed. The tourism commission lost the gun and knife show because they rented the civic center to a local church for a year or two. The gun and knife show promoter went somewhere else. The tourism people now have fallen into the rut of just handing out the restaurant tax money to various groups that need funding to do something that they were going to do anyway. It is time they started building back the weekend events. Make contact with gun and knife promoters, RV and outdoor people, etc. to get some weekend events back to Corbin.
I attended every gun and knife show that had, and attended the ones mentioned in lexington and somerset. We sure need these back here. They drew great crowds.
I don't know how exactly we lost them, but we need them back.
I hope that tourism members read this topic. It seems that right now the civic center is used for parties, weddings and school events. The tourism committee needs to get busy and start building up some annual weekend events that will draw people to Corbin and also give Corbin people something to look forward to. I remember that they used to have a native american festival there also. I went to it for a couple of years until they rented the civic center to a local church and that put a stop to most all of the weekend events.
What is the deal with the renting it to a local church. What is that all about? Is it still being rented to them? I hadn't heard about that. Can you give more info on that?
I'm pretty sure they rented the civic center to the members of Immanual Baptist while their church was being built. That's been several years ago now, if my memory if correct.
WKUgirl is right. That was a deal made a few years ago by a previous tourism commission. Lynch was chairman then. It might have been a good thing for helping the church to get started but it destroyed weekend events at the civic center. At any rate the church deal is over now and it is time for the tourism board to start building back some tourism events. So far I have seen no progress with this. Maybe one of the tourism members will address this at their next meeting. It appears that the tourism board just sits back and waits for people to call them. They need to get on the phone and start calling promoters. Get some weekend events lined up for 2008.
I've been to two gun shows in somerset in past months, and one in Louisville. They were packed.
I talked to a few of the booth owners in Louisville, and they remember when corbin had their shows. They all came to them and set up, and said they did quite well.
Our civic center sits empty now, I wish they would jump on this.
I went to the Gun and Knife show in Louisville last week, or was it two weeks ago, time flies when you're having fun, and spoke with the promoters of the show.
They said they would love to come back to this area. They are in with the promoters at the Somerset shows this year, and they've had huge turnouts.
Since we arent' getting the Horse Show this year, thanks to our elected officials, we need to fill in with things like this.
