After all teh concerns about teen take overs. After the Independence City Council issued a restrictive curfew on those under the age of 18, the 2026 Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival was shut down on Sunday evening as Severe Thunderstorm came over the area and literally cleared the streets of most of the … vendors. As Tony’s Kansas City asked? Karma?
On Sunday evening, Severe thunderstorms rolled through the Kansas City area, and in a period of 30 minutes, not only did damange to the Kansas City Irish Festival, but did serious enough damage that operators of the annual festival released a statement that they would not reopen the Festival part of of the annaual event. The Carnival would reopen on Monday, and the established brick and motar businesses would be open, but for the safety of the vendors, and visitors, the booths would not.
But this wasn’t the only disaster at Santa-Cali-Gon this year. Reports coming out of he event said that traffic was low due to the Extreme Heat that the area was experiencing this weekend. The entire weekend was under an Extreme Heat Warning by the National Weather Service. But again, that was not the only issue. From talking to my son who went to the event on Saturday, he said that it wasn’t a festival as much as it was a commerical expo. He shared with me what others had said about this year’s event. The prices were TOO high on a lot of the ‘garbage’ that they were hocking. This is something that I noticed about ten years ago, that it was less and less a festival and more and more an expo for Companies to hock their services, for people to promote their causes, and for the Boy Scouts to set up fundraising booths. You can only support so many Scout booths before they become redundant to the point you’re no longer interested.
My condolences to the Scout Units that suffered damages from this storm. As for the companies that were out there hocking services and trying to hook people to purchase their services … not so much. At least we didn’t have teenager come in and do a take over … and I’m certain that the Independence City Council will declare their curfew on the under 18 crowd a success.
final note: I remember when going to Santa-Cali-Gon was fun. There were a number of craftsman and artist presenting their products on the Square itself. Companies trying to sell siding or windows were few, special agenda and such organizations were few. There was good food, good prices, and it was fun to visit. There was entertainment, not just at the concert stages but on the the streets throughout the day. I remember when I was young, still in high school and a member of a local garage band, we performed at Santa-Cali-Gon and had a severre storm come through. We held down our canopy, and when the storm passed, we finished our show and he festival went on. Those were the days that many of today’s visitors would appreciate, but have not been able to experience.
How about festival and not a Commercial Expo?
