September 27, 2024 • 13 mins
CoolKay and Coutyfairgrounds interview Dana Cain about the 2024 Choctoberfest coming up at the Arapahoe County fairgrounds in Aurora, Colorado on October 12th. It's like Oktoberfest,
but with Chocolate & Cheese instead of beer! There is also a lot of activities for kids and a Halloween costume contest.
but with Chocolate & Cheese instead of beer! There is also a lot of activities for kids and a Halloween costume contest.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is County Fairgrounds in cool K. We're going to
talk to Dana Kine, who's got Chalk Octoberfest coming up
at the Arapahole County Fairgrounds very soon in Aurora. Hello Dan, Hi,
cool K.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How's it going?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hey, cool Cay's busy. I'm sure you are, okay, yeah,
all right? So how many years has this festival been running?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So, Chucktoberfest, you know, I've been doing the chocolate festivals
for almost twenty years now. Chucktoberfest was originally let's just say,
it's been going on for about eight years, and so
it's it's very popular. It's out at a Rapho County Fairgrounds,
and it's just a really popular festival. It's it's like Chuck,
(00:50):
It's like Octoberfest, but with chocolate and cheese instead of beer.
And we also have a lot of Halloween stuff going on,
and we also bring in some other Octoberfest type stuff,
like we've got a live poka band that does really
fun like polka versions of modern songs and stuff. So
(01:13):
it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay. So it's it's a one day event.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes, it's one day, Saturday, October twelfth. It's ten to five, okay, yep,
And we just moved to a new timed entry system
because of the crowding. And we actually just had our
very first chocolate and cheese fests where we tried out
(01:39):
this system with's timed interest entries and it was a
huge hat hit that just happened on Sunday up in
Loveland and it worked really really good. We actually had
less crowding with more people, so that was good.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Okay, So there is an entry fee though right to come.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, it's ten dollars to get in for session one
or session two, and six dollars for session three. And
so session one is like eleven to one, Session two
is like one to three, and then the third session
(02:19):
is three to five. So once you get in, you
can enter any time during your session and stay as
long as you want. So like if you show up
at eleven thirty for session one, you don't have to
we don't boot you out at one o'clock. You can
stay as long as you want. You could show up
for session one at twelve forty five and still stay
(02:42):
as long as you want.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So, you know, a chocolate and chiefs us, Well that's
a little bit different. How did that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I'll tell you how that happened. So last year in Loveland,
the one we just did, But last year in Loveland
had the lines were insane. They were around the block.
We hit maximum capacity five times and had to This
(03:11):
was just when it was just chocolate. It was just chocolate.
It was the Lovele Chocolate Festival. We kept hitting maximum capacity.
So I'm like, well, we need to rent the other
hall so we can have the whole building both halls.
Then we will double our maximum capacity. But I don't
know if we can fill both halls because there's not
that many chocolate vendors. So I'm like, what are we
(03:34):
going to add to fill the hall? And I thought cheese.
Let's add cheese. Cheese would be good. I did a
little research. I saw there had been a cheese festival
in Colorado, but the reason they stopped was because they
got too many people. And I'm like, okay, well that's good.
(03:55):
That's a good reason to stop, you know, because I
can handle it. So that's what we did. So we
changed it to the Loveland Chocolate and Cheese Fest, and
then we actually did our first We were going to
return to Colorado Springs because we hadn't done a chocolate
(04:15):
festival in the Springs since before the pandemic, and I
thought to myself, well, I'm just going to try the
chocolate and cheese thing down there. And it was insane.
We had so many people show up, it was crazy.
And then I thought, okay, well, obviously chocolate and cheese
(04:38):
is good. But that's when I decided to do the
timed entry because like, everybody shows up the first hour,
you know, and we had like five thousand people. The
Norris Penrose Event Center said that, you know, they've been
around forever and they had literally never had that many
people show up for an event in that space. So
(05:02):
evidently we have found a winning, very popular combination in
chocolate and cheese. So now we're just kind of like,
you know, this is our first ye're doing it and
we're just perfecting it and you know, getting all the
tweaks in and all the final adjustments. So but the
one we just did Sunday in Loveland, it was really smooth.
(05:26):
It was very smooth. Just a couple more little tweaks,
just a couple more little things. So for chuctober Fest,
it's going to be I'm just going to go out
on a limb and say that it will be perfect.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Dan, I used to run big events. I know how
it works.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, So that's an unusual combination. So you havens that
just sell.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Cheese too, yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's it's the similarities.
It's like with chocolate or with cheese. You know, you
can get some like at the grocery store, but then
you get into the artists and stuff, the fancy stuff,
the homemade stuff. And chocolate and cheese both have you know, followings,
(06:11):
like there are people who are like cheese gourmets and
they love to try all the new cheese. It's same
thing with chocolate. So when you can go to a
festival and sometimes honestly it's like the women who are
after the chocolate and the guys who are after the cheese.
You know, So that not always I'm not gett a
(06:31):
stereotype that way, but you know, it does happen. So
it's like there's something for everyone. And you know, because
we don't just have like you know, craft American cheese
like you know, we've got we've got Goat cheese, and
we've got you know, Wisconsin cheese and European cheese and
(06:52):
soft cheese and hard cheese and you know all kinds
really hot spicy cheese and really gooey cheese and all
of it. So it's kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Okay, So, but Halloween is coming, are they? Yes? Things
there for kids to do specifically.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yes, there are. So we do have a lot of
Halloween stuff going on. At Octoberfest. We have a costume
contests for starters and that's always really popular. And then
we also have Halloween craft making station. We have creation
(07:31):
station at a lot of our different events, and at
Chuktoberfest it's all about making Halloween decorations and Halloween masks
and Halloween themed crafts. So those are two of our biggies.
One year we did pumpkin bowling. I don't know if
we're going to do pumpkin bowling again, but we always
have stuff going on. We always have Halloween stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, and costume contests. I thought, I saw, yeah, you
want to explain.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It little, Oh well, sure, yes, it's a costume contest
and the people just they just show up at the
stage like five or ten minutes before and they get
to go up and show off their costume and the
audience applauds, and we have a table full of judges,
(08:19):
and the prizes that we give out our taste tickets
that they can go sample chocolate and cheese with. So
if you win anything at any of our events, because
we have cheese rolling and we have chocolate bingo, and
we have all kinds of events on the stage, and
if you win something, you get taste tickets, so for
(08:43):
more sampling.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
All right, Now, the confusion in me comes when you
go in the door. Do you have like a map
of the thing that says what's going on or something?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yes? Yes, So when you get there and it's actually,
you know, speaking of high tech, we've kind of moved
a lot of that stuff to QR codes where they
because people don't like carrying around like a paper map
and they can just look on their phone and see it.
(09:14):
But we do have a map showing where all the
vendors are, where all the booths are. The map also
shows people where the gluten free samples are, where the
sugar free samples are, where the vegan samples are, and
then it has the program of events that's happening on
the main stage.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, I know. People don't like looking at their phones.
So yeah, one of the concerns that I would have
coming in there, especially if I was a mother, would
be that, you know, if you had like a map
in direction so you know what was going on, and
that's I think that's an important part of the thing too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Right, And it's all just this one is all just
in one big room, so it's not that hard. You know,
the main stages, it's the back of the room and
everything else is just laid out in booths and it's
just like a rectangular grip. So this one's not rocket
science for the layout.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So to me as a mother, if I had some
kids under twelve, what would be the first thing I
should do?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, the first thing you should do is you should
know that if they're under ten, they get in free.
Oh that's good. Yeah, so under ten gets in free.
And so the first thing, well, what you really should
do is you should get your tickets online. You should
get your tickets online because what happened in Loveland was
(10:33):
the VIP sold out, then session one sold out, then
session two sold out, you know, because we have limits
now of twelve hundred per session. So you should definitely
get your tickets online because it'll just make it so
much easier. You'll get in faster, it will be much
less complicated.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Okay, okay, all right, Well I think we've pretty much
covered it. Is there anything you want to add that
you think I haven't we've missed?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, I can't really think of anything except you know
what we did this year with all of my events,
as we made them all alcohol free, and october Fest
is the one that was probably impacted the most because
we used to have a beer garden and after seeing
the stats on Colorado about how we're one of the
(11:25):
leading states and alcohol related deaths and how you know
so many like young women now are are you know,
are dying because of alcohol related deaths, and just you know,
everybody knows somebody, everybody knows somebody with a with a
(11:47):
with an alcoholism problem, with an addiction, and it's just
so hard to go anywhere if you're struggling with that
and see it everywhere. So we don't have beer anymore.
What we do have is our charity Choktail Bar. It's
all for charity, and they're sampling and selling chalktail mocktails
(12:10):
that are just really delicious and great. They were very
popular in Loveland they've been very popular at all of
the events. So that's just the one thing. That's Another
big thing that's different is there's no beer garden, but
we don't have the beer, but we're bringing in the cheese.
So I mean, you can get beer anywhere, but I
(12:32):
don't know where you can get this fancy cheese, you know,
so we kind of swapped out the beer for the cheese.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Okay, okay, Well, it sounds like a great time. And
what time does it start again?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It starts at VIPs get in at ten am and
the general public ours are eleven to five.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Okay, okay, all right, thank you very much and hopefully
you'll have a great turnout.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
All right, well, thanks so much, appreciate it. Okay, thanks, okay,
all right, bye bye Da
This is County Fairgrounds in cool K. We're going to
talk to Dana Kine, who's got Chalk Octoberfest coming up
at the Arapahole County Fairgrounds very soon in Aurora. Hello Dan, Hi,
cool K.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How's it going?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hey, cool Cay's busy. I'm sure you are, okay, yeah,
all right? So how many years has this festival been running?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So, Chucktoberfest, you know, I've been doing the chocolate festivals
for almost twenty years now. Chucktoberfest was originally let's just say,
it's been going on for about eight years, and so
it's it's very popular. It's out at a Rapho County Fairgrounds,
and it's just a really popular festival. It's it's like Chuck,
(00:50):
It's like Octoberfest, but with chocolate and cheese instead of beer.
And we also have a lot of Halloween stuff going on,
and we also bring in some other Octoberfest type stuff,
like we've got a live poka band that does really
fun like polka versions of modern songs and stuff. So
(01:13):
it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay. So it's it's a one day event.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes, it's one day, Saturday, October twelfth. It's ten to five, okay, yep,
And we just moved to a new timed entry system
because of the crowding. And we actually just had our
very first chocolate and cheese fests where we tried out
(01:39):
this system with's timed interest entries and it was a
huge hat hit that just happened on Sunday up in
Loveland and it worked really really good. We actually had
less crowding with more people, so that was good.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Okay, So there is an entry fee though right to come.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, it's ten dollars to get in for session one
or session two, and six dollars for session three. And
so session one is like eleven to one, Session two
is like one to three, and then the third session
(02:19):
is three to five. So once you get in, you
can enter any time during your session and stay as
long as you want. So like if you show up
at eleven thirty for session one, you don't have to
we don't boot you out at one o'clock. You can
stay as long as you want. You could show up
for session one at twelve forty five and still stay
(02:42):
as long as you want.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So, you know, a chocolate and chiefs us, Well that's
a little bit different. How did that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I'll tell you how that happened. So last year in Loveland,
the one we just did, But last year in Loveland
had the lines were insane. They were around the block.
We hit maximum capacity five times and had to This
(03:11):
was just when it was just chocolate. It was just chocolate.
It was the Lovele Chocolate Festival. We kept hitting maximum capacity.
So I'm like, well, we need to rent the other
hall so we can have the whole building both halls.
Then we will double our maximum capacity. But I don't
know if we can fill both halls because there's not
that many chocolate vendors. So I'm like, what are we
(03:34):
going to add to fill the hall? And I thought cheese.
Let's add cheese. Cheese would be good. I did a
little research. I saw there had been a cheese festival
in Colorado, but the reason they stopped was because they
got too many people. And I'm like, okay, well that's good.
(03:55):
That's a good reason to stop, you know, because I
can handle it. So that's what we did. So we
changed it to the Loveland Chocolate and Cheese Fest, and
then we actually did our first We were going to
return to Colorado Springs because we hadn't done a chocolate
(04:15):
festival in the Springs since before the pandemic, and I
thought to myself, well, I'm just going to try the
chocolate and cheese thing down there. And it was insane.
We had so many people show up, it was crazy.
And then I thought, okay, well, obviously chocolate and cheese
(04:38):
is good. But that's when I decided to do the
timed entry because like, everybody shows up the first hour,
you know, and we had like five thousand people. The
Norris Penrose Event Center said that, you know, they've been
around forever and they had literally never had that many
people show up for an event in that space. So
(05:02):
evidently we have found a winning, very popular combination in
chocolate and cheese. So now we're just kind of like,
you know, this is our first ye're doing it and
we're just perfecting it and you know, getting all the
tweaks in and all the final adjustments. So but the
one we just did Sunday in Loveland, it was really smooth.
(05:26):
It was very smooth. Just a couple more little tweaks,
just a couple more little things. So for chuctober Fest,
it's going to be I'm just going to go out
on a limb and say that it will be perfect.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Dan, I used to run big events. I know how
it works.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, So that's an unusual combination. So you havens that
just sell.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Cheese too, yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's it's the similarities.
It's like with chocolate or with cheese. You know, you
can get some like at the grocery store, but then
you get into the artists and stuff, the fancy stuff,
the homemade stuff. And chocolate and cheese both have you know, followings,
(06:11):
like there are people who are like cheese gourmets and
they love to try all the new cheese. It's same
thing with chocolate. So when you can go to a
festival and sometimes honestly it's like the women who are
after the chocolate and the guys who are after the cheese.
You know, So that not always I'm not gett a
(06:31):
stereotype that way, but you know, it does happen. So
it's like there's something for everyone. And you know, because
we don't just have like you know, craft American cheese
like you know, we've got we've got Goat cheese, and
we've got you know, Wisconsin cheese and European cheese and
(06:52):
soft cheese and hard cheese and you know all kinds
really hot spicy cheese and really gooey cheese and all
of it. So it's kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Okay, So, but Halloween is coming, are they? Yes? Things
there for kids to do specifically.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yes, there are. So we do have a lot of
Halloween stuff going on. At Octoberfest. We have a costume
contests for starters and that's always really popular. And then
we also have Halloween craft making station. We have creation
(07:31):
station at a lot of our different events, and at
Chuktoberfest it's all about making Halloween decorations and Halloween masks
and Halloween themed crafts. So those are two of our biggies.
One year we did pumpkin bowling. I don't know if
we're going to do pumpkin bowling again, but we always
have stuff going on. We always have Halloween stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, and costume contests. I thought, I saw, yeah, you
want to explain.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It little, Oh well, sure, yes, it's a costume contest
and the people just they just show up at the
stage like five or ten minutes before and they get
to go up and show off their costume and the
audience applauds, and we have a table full of judges,
(08:19):
and the prizes that we give out our taste tickets
that they can go sample chocolate and cheese with. So
if you win anything at any of our events, because
we have cheese rolling and we have chocolate bingo, and
we have all kinds of events on the stage, and
if you win something, you get taste tickets, so for
(08:43):
more sampling.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
All right, Now, the confusion in me comes when you
go in the door. Do you have like a map
of the thing that says what's going on or something?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yes? Yes, So when you get there and it's actually,
you know, speaking of high tech, we've kind of moved
a lot of that stuff to QR codes where they
because people don't like carrying around like a paper map
and they can just look on their phone and see it.
(09:14):
But we do have a map showing where all the
vendors are, where all the booths are. The map also
shows people where the gluten free samples are, where the
sugar free samples are, where the vegan samples are, and
then it has the program of events that's happening on
the main stage.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, I know. People don't like looking at their phones.
So yeah, one of the concerns that I would have
coming in there, especially if I was a mother, would
be that, you know, if you had like a map
in direction so you know what was going on, and
that's I think that's an important part of the thing too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Right, And it's all just this one is all just
in one big room, so it's not that hard. You know,
the main stages, it's the back of the room and
everything else is just laid out in booths and it's
just like a rectangular grip. So this one's not rocket
science for the layout.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So to me as a mother, if I had some
kids under twelve, what would be the first thing I
should do?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, the first thing you should do is you should
know that if they're under ten, they get in free.
Oh that's good. Yeah, so under ten gets in free.
And so the first thing, well, what you really should
do is you should get your tickets online. You should
get your tickets online because what happened in Loveland was
(10:33):
the VIP sold out, then session one sold out, then
session two sold out, you know, because we have limits
now of twelve hundred per session. So you should definitely
get your tickets online because it'll just make it so
much easier. You'll get in faster, it will be much
less complicated.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Okay, okay, all right, Well I think we've pretty much
covered it. Is there anything you want to add that
you think I haven't we've missed?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, I can't really think of anything except you know
what we did this year with all of my events,
as we made them all alcohol free, and october Fest
is the one that was probably impacted the most because
we used to have a beer garden and after seeing
the stats on Colorado about how we're one of the
(11:25):
leading states and alcohol related deaths and how you know
so many like young women now are are you know,
are dying because of alcohol related deaths, and just you know,
everybody knows somebody, everybody knows somebody with a with a
(11:47):
with an alcoholism problem, with an addiction, and it's just
so hard to go anywhere if you're struggling with that
and see it everywhere. So we don't have beer anymore.
What we do have is our charity Choktail Bar. It's
all for charity, and they're sampling and selling chalktail mocktails
(12:10):
that are just really delicious and great. They were very
popular in Loveland they've been very popular at all of
the events. So that's just the one thing. That's Another
big thing that's different is there's no beer garden, but
we don't have the beer, but we're bringing in the cheese.
So I mean, you can get beer anywhere, but I
(12:32):
don't know where you can get this fancy cheese, you know,
so we kind of swapped out the beer for the cheese.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Okay, okay, Well, it sounds like a great time. And
what time does it start again?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It starts at VIPs get in at ten am and
the general public ours are eleven to five.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Okay, okay, all right, thank you very much and hopefully
you'll have a great turnout.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
All right, well, thanks so much, appreciate it. Okay, thanks, okay,
all right, bye bye Da
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