IONIA — Fans will have to wait at least another year before celebrating the “Wizard of Oz” again in downtown Ionia.
Officials confirmed the Michigan Wizard of Oz Festival, which began in Ionia in 2014, won’t return in 2025, and plans for a themed day at the Ionia Free Fair never came to fruition.
Several of the organizers of past years’ festivals were unavailable in mid-July, said Cassie Rice, director of the Ionia Downtown Development Authority.
“There are many individuals in the community who want to restart it and would want to keep (the tradition) going,” Rice said. “It’s under consideration for a future event. It could happen.”
Rice indicated that, given discussions she’s been involved in this year, the earliest possible return date is 2026, but nothing has been finalized.
“We might very well have (the festival) again some year,” she said.
During the festival, visitors were able to meet their favorite characters from the movie and participate in themed events and contests. The event was a two-day celebration from 2014 to 2019, went virtual in 2020, paused in 2021, and returned for a single day in October 2022.
In June 2023, the DDA Board announced it was canceling that year’s festival. According to the event’s social media page, the decision was made in part because Ionia’s 150th Year Celebration was planned for October. The event didn’t return in 2024.
In 2022, then-DDA Director Linda Curtis told The Sentinel-Standard a whopping 85% of festivalgoers traveled more than 50 miles to celebrate “The Wizard of Oz.”
“We have visitors from across the nation who attend, which is a great opportunity for all the businesses in Ionia,” Curtis said.
— M. Alan Scott is a freelance writer for The Sentinel-Standard. Contact the newsroom at newsroom@sentinel-standard.com.
This article originally appeared on Ionia Sentinel-Standard: Wizard of Oz Festival won’t return to Ionia in 2025. Here’s when it might come back
Reporting by M. Alan Scott / Ionia Sentinel-Standard
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