Muenster Chamber of Commerce explains dispute that led to competing Germanfests
A dispute over beer sales led to the competing festivals on Germanfest weekend in Muenster, according to the Chamber of Commerce, which has hosted the event for 48 years.
This year the Jaycees are hosting “Party in the Park” at Muenster City Park, where Germanfest took place for 40 years before it moved to a 75,000-square-foot hall on the edge of town in 2018. The Jaycees said they couldn’t reach a contract agreement, so they decided to host their own festival.
Both are scheduled for April 26-28 less than a mile apart in this Cooke County city of 1,600.
Lilly Palmer, director of the chamber of commerce, said Thursday the Muenster Jaycees typically previously received 77% of the beer sales at Germanfest, but because of rising costs to run the festival the chamber asked them to go down to 70%.
“”Over the last several years, we’ve seen significant increases in expenses to host these events, for example security, entertainment, tent rental supplies, etc.,” Palmer said. “This year, we approached the Muenster Jaycees to reconsider the terms of their contract. Unfortunately, we were unable to come to an agreement, and they chose to step away from Germanfest.”
Jared Flusche, president of the Muenster Jaycees, told the Star-Telegram last week that Jaycees needed to raise the money to be productive throughout the year.
Palmer said Germanfest had secured a beer vendor. She acknowledged some vendors had opted to be at Party in the Park instead of the site at Heritage Park. Those include the local Boy Scouts, the Muenster Knights of Columbus (who provide Margaritas) and the Fleitman family, which runs a booth for “nagelschlän” (an ancient German game).
“We wish success to the Germanfest Party in the Park, for the community, and feel the town could have benefited even greater had they held their event on a different date,” Palmer said.
The annual Germanfest bike rally, which is separate from the festival but occurs on the same weekend, lists its after party (tickets for two beers come with the registration) at the city park instead of the chamber’s.
Palmer believes the vendors from outside Muenster will still bring a lot of festival-goers and money to the community.
“With the amount of pull that all of our vendors bring, because we have vendors that come from all over, they also bring in their people to come here too, Palmer said. “We are here to support the locals, but we bring outside money to give to the locals.”
This story was originally published April 3, 2024 at 2:01 PM.
