Carillon Park to no longer host Germanfest Picnic or its own German heritage festival

UPDATED: Dayton History stated on Friday that they are no longer planning to host a German heritage festival.

>>> FULL STORY: Dayton History cancels plans for German Festival at Carillon Park <<<

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Liederkranz-Turner’s 34 annual Germanfest Picnic will not be held at Carillon Park.

Instead the park will hold its own 10-day German heritage picnic, said Brady Kress, Dayton History's president and CEO.

"The festival is going to be bigger and better than what they ever did here before," Kress said. "It is no longer financially beneficial to us to continue to partner with them."

The new festival will be held Aug. 11 to 20 at the park located at 1000 Carillon Blvd. in Dayton.

Germanfest Picnic was planned at the park for Aug. 11 to 13. Those dates are still advertised on the German club's website.

John Koerner, Germanfest Picnic's longtime chairman, said he was taken back by news of the new festival.

He said he only found out Wednesday that the Dayton History wanted to end its festival.

"I think it is disingenuous to undercut (us) and have their own festival," he said. "They are going to try to build off everything we did over the last 33 years and that really annoys me."

GermanFest was the 127-year-old club's largest fund-raising event, bring in as much as $75,000 annually.

The future of the event will be among the chief discussion items when the 400-member organization holds its annual meeting on Sunday, Jan. 8.

Stay tuned for more details on this developing story.

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