Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
This is Dana County fair Grounds in cool k Here. Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Heyke okay, Hi, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm busy, as I'm sure you are.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Oh yeah, a little bit busy. So's this weekend? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Okay. So we have a Unicorn Festival at the Arapahole
County Fairgrounds in Aurora August twenty third through the twenty fourth.
So this Aunicorn Festival has been going on for quite
a few years, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, we launched in twenty seventeen and we've actually been
in Littleton at Clement Park every year except twenty twenty
which yeah, nobody was doing anything. But we've been around
since twenty seventeen except for them. Anyway, this year, our
big news is we have moved. We have moved because
(00:49):
we really wanted to get a combination of indoor and
outdoor space and we so a rap Ho County Fairgrounds
is a very well known venue. It's out east to Denver,
and we have fifty thousand squed of squeed of indoor.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We have fifty thousand square feet of indoors space in
addition to just beautiful, beautiful outside greens and they're outdoor lawns.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Actually even have trees and sort of. It's just a
more modern that you have electricity, which is like new
for us. We're so excited they have they have real bathrooms, okay,
so we don't have to bring in porta potties. There's
real plumbing, there's real electricity. We've got the indoors, we've
(01:46):
got the outdoors. So there's just a lot more we
can do now, and we're super excited.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And there's plenty of parking, right.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Oh, yes, that's the other thing. You don't have to
shuttle over from the mall. Yeah, there's plenty of free
on site parking.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, all right, I see that. You know, you've done
some things. You have a bunch of new things going
on this year that you haven't had before. One of
the things that you that you have is a new
phone party, and that seems to be a big thing
all over the country this year. You want to talk
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Sure, sure, sure, we're doing I believe it's two phone
parties a day. Gosh, it might be three. It's two
or three phone parties every day, and uh yeah, they're
just it's it's like, you know, how like when you
were a kid and you had like a big bubble bash.
It's like imagine the bubble baths without the bat and
(02:39):
with the bubbles being like six or eight feet high,
and the kids just get to like just run through
it like it's like a They just jump in and
play in it and the bubbles go everywhere. It's really
fun and it's all you know, like non toxic, blah
blah blah, won't hurt the grass, won't hurt the kids,
(03:01):
but is Yeah, people love it. Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
One of the things I think that's cute about this
is you have, you know, unicorns correls for photos, so
they can get pictures with a unicorn.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh yeah, that's that's the big draw of the Unicorn
Festival is the unicorns. We have more than twenty live unicorns.
We've got more than We've got about five unicorn providers
who come in from around the state and actually one
comes in from Utah bringing unicorns for us, and they
(03:33):
are they're wonderful, they're beautiful, they're fantastic, and so they're
sort of like parsioned out in corrals. We have some indoors,
we have some outdoors and the kids can pet them
and they can sit on their backs for photos. And
I mean, you know, everybody that goes to the Unicorn
Festival wants to get, you know, a photo of their
(03:56):
kid on a unicorn, so it's in not all all
that's included with the ticket price. Yea, all all, all
that's included. So the the the tickets are it's twenty
five bucks, but kids two and younger are free. And
we have all kinds of discounts. We have family four
(04:16):
packed discounts, but those end Thursday at five, but we
have military discounts. We have discounts if you come in
after two on Sunday for the end. But yeah, once
you once you get in, everything's included, all the all
the unicorn access, the Princess Palace meet and greets and
(04:38):
photos that we have, free face painting, you know, we
have just everything's included. I mean except for the food,
you know, and you know, want a T shirt that's
not included. But yeah, people love it. Our Our approval
ratings from the parents are just through. I mean, you know,
(04:59):
I I do a lot of events and usually you
know you'll get oh you know, eh maybe maybe eighty
three percent of people rank you good to excellent at
this one. And I am not making it up ninety
seven percent rank us good to excellent. And these are
(05:21):
parents of toddlers who I don't know if you know this,
but they're like the pickiest people on earth. They just
and they love it. They love it. We hear all
the time that their kids want to every day they're like,
let's go back. You know, they talk about it all
year and you know, people say it's like the coolest
thing their family's ever been to. So yeah, it's a
(05:44):
really it's a really good weekend.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
There's not another unicorn festival anywhere in the United States
that I know of, is there not like.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
What we do? I mean, people people have events with unicorns,
but nobody. Nobody doesn't like us. Nobody does it this big.
Nobody has this many. Nobody includes the mermaids. Oh did
I mention the mermaids. We have Mermaid Lagoon, and we
have a whole pot of mermaids that come up from
(06:15):
Pueblo and they bring their pool and their water cannons
and and they're just really fun. I mean, nobody else
has like all the all the wandering fairies, all the princesses.
We've got a trolls dance party this year that I'm
really excited about I love trolls. I love that whole franchise,
(06:36):
you know, because there's still music based. But yeah, nobody
does it like us. There might be people who have, like,
you know, a unicorn and a pumpkin patch or something,
but not like us.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, there's a lot of pumpkin patches, Dana, I'm right, yeah, Okay,
you have brand new slides and obstacle courses.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Talk about that, Okay, So we have. So there's one
it's called the under the Sea wind Tunnel, and so
that's gonna be by the Mermaids and it's like this
whole undersea themed thing and it's got slides and you
walk through it and I guess there's a wind tunnel apparently,
(07:21):
I don't know. I've never been through it. But there's
also like a giant butterfly butterfly bounce house with a
big slide, and we have our big how tall is
it is? Like twenty feet tall, thirty feet tall, giant
inflatable double slide with a big old dragon on top
(07:41):
like he's in a medieval castle. That's really fun. And
of course we have our gigantic unicorn slide. You can't
miss that one. It's got a big unicorn at the
top and it's like a big and these are all inflatables,
you know, so they're not gonna be like hot in
the sun like a metal slide. But yeah, we got
tons of bounce houses too. We got little dragon bounce houses.
(08:05):
That one is for age five and younger because we
kind of, you know, we used to have issues with
like older kids jumping around like maniacs and little toddlers
just you know, flying around like you know, bebies. So
we have the bounce houses kind of designated by age.
(08:27):
But there's a lot of them. I think there's like
seven spread around, but some of them are really big.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So okay, what's rent our private party room?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
What is that? That's another new thing. So, you know,
we couldn't do it at Clement, but now we have
this beautiful indoor party room. And you know, people are
always bringing their birthdays. Their birth is my daughter's birthday.
We want her to come do it at the Unicorn Festival.
And we would just be like, well, come on and
buy tickets because we couldn't do anything else. So with
(09:01):
the private party rental, you get the party room, you
bring in the cake, and you know, and you do
have to buy the tickets, but we supply party games,
all the decorations, all the plates, all the napkins, all
the you know, the center pieces. We have the birthday
girls sash, we have we just have the whole like
(09:24):
we have the whole setup. So all the party has
to do is just buy their tickets, come in, and
they bring the cake or whatever else they want. But
it's a private room and they can do that. It's
an hour and a half rental and then they can
just do that and then they can just go out
and enjoy the festival. Okay, but they can still like
(09:48):
check back at their room if they want. They'll have
it for an hour and a half rented for them
before we get ready for the next one.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Okay. Creation Station, that is all.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He's one of our most popular popular attractions. And it's
indoors this year, so the craft supplies won't be blowing
around in the breeze. Yes, yes, Carol Angel who runs it,
was pretty ecstatic so at Creation Station. And Carol Angel
(10:21):
who runs it, she is a crafter and she is
a recycler. She is like she she gathers up supplies
all year long and these kids can go in. This
is all included, it's all free. They have their choice.
They can make their own magic wand they can make
(10:43):
a unicorn horn. They can make a unicorn tail or
a dragon tail, and they they can they She has
all the decorations, she has everything to glue on it,
all the stickers, all the colors, all the you know,
all the all the base thing, and it's just kids
just absolutely love it. I mean I have had I've
(11:05):
seen kids come into the festival and the first thing
they do is they're they're tugging on their dad's hands saying,
let's go to creation station first, because yeah, and you know,
it's it's a time to just kind of like sit down, focus, create.
It's good. It's really good. And she does thousands of
(11:26):
projects every year. I think last year it was oh
I'm not going to know the exact number, but it
was like two thousand and nine hundred and something individual
projects that were completed. Okay, okay, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Right, So this this festival is primarily for kids to
say under twelve.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Well, I don't know, I mean, you know, it's for
really it's it's a huge family festival. Yes, we get
every toddler in the Ford State area. But we also
get a lot of adults coming out. We get a
lot of teenagers coming out, you know, anybody that likes
just you know, magic and imagination and fun. There's a
(12:06):
ton of costplay. There's a ton of costplay, and that
extends to all ages. You know, all the little girls
show up in their princess dresses or they're two two's,
everybody's gone on their little unicorn horn headband. You know,
the boys show up and their and their costumes. You know,
they're all like pirates or whatever. And then and and
(12:30):
and the parents do too. But we also get some
like professional cost players dressed as as you know, fairies
or you know, magical creatures. It's it's really I'd say
it's in all ages, but yeah, it's it definitely Skews family.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Do you have like regular vendors too?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Also, Well, I don't know what you mean by regular,
but yeah, I'm gonna say yes, because I mean, we
we have we have about twenty food trucks and food vendors,
but we also have a lot of crafters, a lot
of fantasy themed vendors, a lot of toy vendors, a
lot of you know, anybody. We have some clothing vendors,
(13:14):
but really most of the vendors kind of focus on
the theme, like they'll have you know, unicorn art, Unicorn stickers,
unicorn crafts, unicorn a lot of unicorn headbands or unicorn
T shirts. So most of the vendors follow the theme.
(13:35):
I mean, we don't have you know, we don't have boring.
We don't have boring vendors. I guess.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Okay, and you have air conditioning, right, we.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Do for the first time ever.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Although we have been really really lucky, the unicorn gods
always smile on us and they give us good weather.
And it looks like this weekend our weather. It's been
really hot and it's actually dropping. It's dropping for the weekend,
so it looks like we're going to be really comfortable.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Oh that's good. I know it's been hot. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Yeah, it's going to be seventies this weekend. So I'm like, oh, good, seventies.
I'll take it, you know. But yeah, if it does
get hot, if we do have a little rain on Sunday,
people can just go inside till it blows over, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Okay, all right, so where do they go? How do
they get into this thing. Where's the parking at.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay, the first let me say, you go to Unicorn
Festival Colorado dot com. Unicorn Festival Colorado dot com. I
should have said that right at the beginning, and that
has all the information, all the directions, and that's where
you can buy your tickets. And then so Rapo County Fairgrounds.
(14:50):
It's accessible by all the major highways. Really, it's about
a mile east of E four seventy on Quint's so
if you get you can well, there's directions on the website,
but a lot most people have been there at some point,
so they know you can get there with or without
(15:11):
the toll road. And once you get there, there's gonna
be signs everywhere directing you where to go and where
to park.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Okay, Okay, Well it sounds like a great time. I
hope you have a great festival.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah, we're planning on it. I think it's gonna be
our best yet. Ticket sales are booming, so that's good.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, we'll get this posted and it will help boom more.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
All right, Kay, thanks so much, really appreciate it. Bye bye, Okay, bye,