Today’s blog is from Gayl Dotts, Special Events Coordinator with Fun Serivces.
It is cold and bleak in Central Michigan today but at Fun Services we are busy beginning plans to assist Grand Hotel with the Children’s carnival for Fourth of July family celebration. This year’s event will be three days of fun for children, parents and grandparents alike.
In the Tea Garden on July 3rd, 4th and 5th you will find an old fashioned carnival , filled with inflatable rides, cotton candy and sno kones, sports games, carnival games and prizes, face painters, caricaturists and more!
Throughout the winter months and into the spring we
will plan logistics, develop set up diagrams, organize crew, pack prizes and prepare equipment all to be ready to take the trip North in early summer. Late in June with our paper plans complete we will begin the countdown to our departure starting 4 full days before the first event on July 3rd.
Travel with me as we experience those last four days of preparation.
T minus 4 days and counting.
Fun Services begins loading the first of three trailers that will be delivered to the woods adjacent to the Tea Garden at Grand Hotel. They are loaded with 12 carnival games, 8 sports games, 9 inflatables with motors, 2000 servings each of cotton candy and sno kone, hundreds of art activities and over 10,0000 prizes. They are separated into the trailers by type of equipment, where in the Tea Garden it will be place and weight distribution. Each trailer’s weight must not exceed 4000 lbs so that it may be easily pulled up the hills by horses on Mackinac Island.
Trailer loading will continue throughout the day and into the next. By noon the following day the equipment loading will be complete and we will set back to think about what we may have forgotten for as we have learned over the years – “if you didn’t bring it with you, you can’t run home to get it”.
T minus 3 days and counting.
The final confirmation of the crew, made up of 30 workers from the Mid State area, is completed. Workers are issued ferry tickets and work shirts, assigned travel vehicles, crew instructions, transportation plans and hotel information. On Mackinac 20+ employees of Grand Hotel will assist us.
All logistics reservations are confirmed including trailer permits with the City of Mackinac Island, freight transportation with Arnold Transit and dray
service with Mackinac Island Service Company.
T minus 2 days and counting.
Three fully loaded trailers with a driving crew of 6 will pull out from our Bellevue warehouse headed for the Straits of Mackinac, the “Big Mac” and Mackinac Island. The trip will take approximately 5 hours. We will cross the Bridge and spend the night in St. Ignace . (Freight only runs to Mackinac Island via St. Ignace.)
T minus 1 day and counting.
First thing in the morning our trailers along with one from Fun Services of Grand Rapids will be delivered to the Arnold Line freight dock to be transported to the Island. Once on the Island they will be housed on the dock until the late afternoon when downtown traffic is less congested and they can be moved – up the hill to Grand Hotel. The driving crew now changes hats, boards the passenger ferry and becomes the advance crew, working on event logistics that can only be completed on site. We will meet with Anndee Gross from Grand Hotel to go over any last minute changes.
The remaining Fun Services crew departs from Bellevue. They will arrive in Mackinac City and cross to the Island by end of day. A crew meeting will be held in the evening to ensure event continuity.
In early evening, under the direction of the Mackinac Island Service Company and the City of Mackinac Island the trailers will move through the streets- down Market Street and up Grand Ave, past the Little Stone Church, past the park and into the woods behind the Tea Garden. Here with the assistant of Head Groundskeeper, Mary, the trailers will be placed at either end of the path, full of fun items just waiting for the July 4th Celebration.
Event Day is finally here!
Early on event day, when most hotel guests are still sleeping, the Fun Services staff begins assembling a carnival where the evening before you enjoyed a game of bocce ball or took a quiet stroll through the garden. By 10:00 most equipment will be in place and anxious children will begin appearing, wide eyed with one big question – “when does the carnival start?”
At 11:30, the band strikes up a patriotic song and the FUN begins!!!!
Fun Services of Bellevue has been providing family fun for the Grand Hotel for 17 years! We appreciate their patronage and are honored to assist them. We have watched entire families grow up as they return to Grand Hotel, year after year, we know many of your guests and your staff by name and look forward to another 17 years and more!
