Candy Dance organizers to scale back Genoa event

Organizers for next year's Genoa Candy Dance hope to trim the number of vendors so that they can be more selective.

Trustees of the Genoa Town Board agreed to reduce the number of vendors in the festival and to improve the jury process.

"It was just too overwhelming (last year), too spread," said Town Clerk Mike Saffron.

"We want a way to safely reduce the number of vendors while still providing support of the town.

"The Candy Dance is the lifeblood of Genoa," Saffron said.

Saffron said that it will also be more cost-effective for the town to reduce the number of vendors and it will allow for quality control to be increased.

"Last year, the biggest problem we had was that a number of vendors slipped through the cracks," he said.

"Some of them had crafts that they had bought somewhere else and were re-selling. That's not what the Candy Dance is about," Saffron added.

He said the cap this year will be around 300 vendors for the September event, which usually draws between 80,000 and 100,000 people.

Contact Joey Crandall at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 212.