>>2777750I have been to the Muscoda Morel Festival
It was more like one room where you could buy fresh morels from foragers until they ran out in a few hours because restaurants bought them all, then a small non-mushroom-themed farmer's market
I think the Crystal Falls Humongous Fungus Festival has the potential to be the Midwest's Telluride if they bothered to get real event organizers. From what I can tell, the main force behind the festival is the boomer owner of a thrift shop downtown and the rest is planned by the business association. The only real mushroom-themed event that takes place is a cook-off for dishes that contain mushrooms. There's also a parade of local businesses and a concert (last year was a Journey tribute band, this year was a 70's medley band). There's a guided foray (not to the actual humongous fungus, mind you) that costs $60 (!!) as well.
There's a small town in Iowa where I live now that has a Pumpkin Festival. They sell pumpkins, they have carved pumpkin judging, they have a pumpkin weigh-off where pumpkins are brought in via forklift, they have pumpkin-themed vendors. The town has no real inherent connection to pumpkins, it's just something they put on.
Crystal Falls is located by a fucking fungal celebrity and the best theme they can come up with is a morel pun for a festival that happens at the end of August. Give me a break. Off the top of my head, here's some events they could host: mushroom dyeing, mushroom-themed drawing contest, a mushroom costume contest, Artist Conk drawing, mushroom growing workshop, mushroom ID class, spore print workshop, free forays, mushroom ecology class, mushroom cooking/preservation methods...
If I wasn't an asocial retard I would see what I could do to step in and help Crystal Falls. I had to get this off my chest
