A Route 66 conference slated for late October in Edwardsville, Illinois, has been canceled because of logistical challenges in organizing it, according to a news release sent Tuesday.
Cheryl Eichar Jett wrote in the release:
Unfortunately, it was too much of a logistical challenge with the City of Edwardsville and plans have never been finalized. There simply was not the full-fledged community support that needed to be in place to make this the cool event that it should have been.
The announcement about the conference was made shortly after the Route 66 Festival in Kingman, Arizona, last year. The Edwardsville event was designed to be held in conjunction with a Halloween festival that the city has hosted for decades.
UPDATE 2/19/2014: The city of Edwardsville sent a statement about the cancellation. Both that and the news release may be found after the jump:
It is with regret that I have to tell you that the Edwardsville Route 66 Conference planned for Halloween weekend of this year will not be a reality. Unnfortunately, it was too much of a logistical challenge with the City of Edwardsville and plans have never been finalized. There simply was not the full-fledged community support that needed to be in place to make this the cool event that it should have been.
I cannot ask any of you, my Route 66 friends and colleagues, to continue to put your own plans on hold any longer. At the same time, it is not feasible for me to continue to invest time, energy, and personal funds. Many of you know that I have put in countless hours of work, promoted the conference, talked with many of you about being presenters, and maintained that it would happen, no matter how late it was getting to open registration and confirm details.
The main point of this post is to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have expressed support, cheered me on, promised to attend, made suggestions, put in for time off work to attend, offered to help in various ways, spread the word, and supported me in so many ways. Some very special people have been part of these plans from the beginning and deserve an extra thank you from the bottom of my heart – Jim Hinckley, a very kind gentleman, promoter, and storyteller of the road, who had the original idea for this event, Dr. Nick Gerlich, marketer and Route 66 promoter and explorer extraordinaire, Roamin’ Rich Dinkela, whose passion and efforts for the road knows no bounds, Bill Kelly, Executive Director of Illinois Scenic Byway, tireless promoter of Illinois 66 and patient listener of my ups and downs for many months, my awesome co-author, Joe Sonderman, who also has patiently listened to me and offered his expertise for months, and in Edwardsville, Cindy Reinhardt and Will Krause, who believed in the project and tried so hard to make it happen. My gratitude to all of you is just as great as if we had really pulled this off.
I hope you can guess at how very disappointed I am to relay this news. See you on the road.
Chery(l) Eichar Jett
Edwardsville, IL
February 17, 2015
The statement from the city:
The City of Edwardsville is profoundly disappointed with the decision to cancel this event. On November 14, 2014 we had an idea sharing meeting, without a lot of specifics, but by January 30, 2015 significant progress had been made and great detail of the proposed event was provided. Logistically, we have been holding the dates at the Wildey Theatre for the conference venue since our first planning meeting in the fall, and we were prepared to request tourism funds at the next Finance Committee meeting to support other aspects of the event. Based on our last meeting, the City was convinced that the planned event would move forward in a positive manner and the administration would not only be supportive, but also provide assistance. We were very surprised to learn that the decision was made to cancel the event over the weekend. A meeting to discuss the costs of using the Wildey last evening was abruptly ended before it started, with the news the event planners had cancelled the event. We are fortunate to have many community minded volunteers, like our Route 66 enthusiasts, that through their passion and hard work make our community a special place. While we share the disappointment of the Route 66 Community and regret that we will not have the opportunity to showcase our great town for this event, we will continue to host our annual Route 66 Festival on the second weekend in June and invite the Route 66 Community to visit the City of Edwardsville at this time.
– Mayor Hal Patton