Record crowd shows up in Little Falls for Cheese Festival

By Dave Warner

Any way, you look at it: there were a lot of people in Little Falls on Saturday for the 9th annual Cheese Festival. The weather was perfect, with temperatures in the upper 60s and an almost cloudless day.

Teri Chace, with Team Cheese, stated, “My heart is full, and I’m just overwhelmed. We’re in our ninth year this year, and we work so hard. We had meetings year-round, month to month, which may seem excessive, but all that groundwork that you do in advance is so important to a smooth running festival when the day comes.”

“There were more people than we anticipated, but that’s not a terrible problem to have when you’re running a festival. There were longer lines for the buses, so next year, we’ll order more. It’s not a difficult problem to solve.”

Estimates from vendors, organizers, and others placed the crowd size between 14 and 15 thousand. “The crowd was pretty steady all day. It didn’t taper off because it was such a nice day,” she said.

She said they had a new vendor who was very excited to be at the festival. They brought everything they possibly could but still sold out early. “That’s some of the regret from the vendors—we had really experienced vendors selling out. I think the crowds were bigger than anybody expected.”

Chace wanted to thank everyone for being good festival-goers. “A lot of people come here to talk to the vendors and learn about them, and if the lines move a little bit more slowly, it’s a very heartwarming human moment to talk to the person who made what you’re buying—it’s so direct.”

She felt it was a remarkable, well-rounded event. “I’m very happy, and I’m very tired. It was a great day, and Little Falls put its best foot forward,” she said.

“Our volunteers did a great job being welcoming, serving the public, and helping the festival run smoothly. I cannot say enough good things about our volunteers – they were awesome,” Chace stated.

You can watch the video of the event on YouTube or below. After you scroll past the video, you will see a large number of photos. If you want a unique view of the festival, click here. You’ll see another icon when you use your mouse to move the view and face west. Click on that, and you’ll get another perspective.