Festival's Fireworks Cancelled

Organizers of a summer festival in Manistee are looking forward to a fun and successful event thi...  More »

Organizers of a summer festival in Manistee are looking forward to a fun and successful event this year, even though an activity or two had to be cancelled due to a lack of funding. The 73rd Annual Manistee National Forest Festival will run for five days beginning on July 1st, but this year, it will be missing the usual fireworks display that would normally be held on Friday night. Organizers said the cancellation of the fireworks display is due to the struggling economy; they said they're about $18,000 short in funding for the festival so eliminating the $8,000 fireworks display helped keep within budget. Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Melissa Reed said that cancelling the fireworks was a "kicking and screaming" process; she said that if an organization was willing to fund the fireworks, the Chamber would love to bring them back.  « Less