116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Lone Tree preparing for annual fall festival this month
Event takes place Friday and Saturday with bounce houses, music and more
LONE TREE — The Lone Tree Chamber of Commerce has been hard at work planning the city’s annual fall festival, which is just around the corner.
The annual event is Friday and Saturday and features various events, shopping, food trucks and more. While this event has been a part of Lone Tree’s tradition for years, the Chamber of Commerce has been hard at work to rejuvenate the festival after the onset of COVID-19, as well as revitalize the city’s downtown.
Lone Tree, along with Johnson County’s other smaller cities, has been working on community-led downtown revitalization efforts. Lone Tree, in southeast Johnson County, has a population of 1,353.
Local business owner and resident Caitlin Ford is helping with these efforts and is part of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. Ford spoke with The Gazette about the annual fall festival, the work that goes into planning the event and how the event ties into other revitalization efforts.
If you go
What: Lone Tree fall festival
When: Friday, Aug. 25 and Saturday, Aug. 26
There will be events all throughout the evening Friday and all through out the day and night on Saturday. A schedule of events can be found on the city of Lone Tree’s website or on the event’s Facebook page.
Where: A map of the festival can be found on the Facebook page. Many events will be held on and around Devoe Street. Some events require registration.
Cost: Wristbands can be purchased in advance until Friday for $30 for both Friday and Saturday. After that, wristbands will be $40 for both days or $30 for Saturday only. Wristbands are good for the bounce houses and other rides.
Q: What is Lone Tree’s fall festival?
A: Ford said the fall festival is an annual traditional that has been going on for years. The event is always at the end of August.
"We are celebrating the end of summer and kicking off like a new school year, kicking off fall and just celebrating our town,“ Ford said.
Planning for the festival typically begins a couple months after the last festival wraps up, so planning for this year’s event began in November 2022. There’s a lot of thought and planning that goes into it, Ford said.
Q: What has fall festival looked like in the past? How is this year different?
A: In the past, the fall festival typically has featured a carnival with different rides and events, Ford said. This year, instead of a carnival, there will be various bounce houses brought in for all ages through Ankeny-based company Knockerball 118. Little kids, teenagers and adults will all be able to partake in the bounce houses.
“This can be for anybody that wants to do it,” Ford said.
There also will be various events throughout the festival, as well as food trucks.
Some of the events Ford highlighted include an ice cream social, pancake breakfast, car show, football game, frog hop, egg toss, wing eating contest and more. There also will be live music and even a mechanical bull.
“There's definitely some events that people will be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that from last year,’ but then there's also new things for them to look forward to,” Ford said.
Q: Earlier this year, we had talked about Lone Tree’s downtown revitalization efforts. How does the work of the fall festival play into that?
A: The work with the fall festival and bringing in food trucks for the event “really encompasses what we're trying to do, which is promote small businesses around our community,” Ford said.
“The work that we're doing for fall festival is to showcase what our town can offer people, as far as wanting to live in this community, feeling a sense of community and also for small businesses that see it as a potential place that they want to bring their business to.”
Ford said the festival’s planning efforts have included combining traditional aspects of the festival with new opportunities.
Ford added how she’s heard from some older residents how they’re grateful that the Chamber of Commerce has taken taking over planning for the event.
“We've always said we don't want to take away from what people have done because that's where our roots come from, but I think they've really appreciated to see this come back to life, of something that they worked really hard on too and that their efforts didn't go unnoticed. We have a lot of younger people coming on board because we're building a lot more excitement around the event.”
Q: Anything you’re particularly looking forward to or excited about?
A: Ford said her favorite part is the Saturday night events. That’s when the tug of war, hay bale toss and egg toss happen.
“Our main stage area is just packed with all of these people, and it is just really cool to see everyone come around and be almost in one central location just celebrating our town,” Ford said.
Comments: (319) 339-3155; izabela.zaluska@thegazette.com
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