12/08/2015
To all of our fans:
Wow what an amazing experience Saturday night was. The number of Krampus revelers grew from 2000 to 3,100 in a single year – quite the sight to behold. We are thankful for your joy, smiles, support and screams!
We want to share publically about a few things so our fans know our focus and intent in producing Bloomington Krampus Night. It is so thrilling to be the largest Krampus Night parade in North America and we have you all to thank for that! It only makes sense that you are part of this and should stay as informed as our Krampus Krewe.
So let’s talk about language, feedback, volunteering, intent and goals.
LANGUAGE
First, we need to get this out of the way, it is the first thing all our volunteers learn. The vowels in Krampus are closer in tone to “prom goose” than “ram kiss” (apologies to all the German speakers as we know that isn’t exactly right but it is closer). We want you all to have that pronunciation support – it also sounds much scarier!
FEEDBACK
We want to hear your feedback. Did you really enjoy something? Do you have a suggestion that would make the event better? Did something happen we should know about? Please tell us. We want to hear from you. While we are a small, volunteer production team with limited resources we are interested in your ideas, opinions and suggestions. Feel free to private message me personally via FB, send a message to Bloomington Krampus or KLAW on FB, or email [email protected].
VOLUNTEERING
To those who desire to join the Krampus Krewe: Thank you!
We appreciate your enthusiasm and drive to get involved. We are honored by your interest and it gives us quite a bit of joy.
We will however respectfully decline.
Like many I have health issues that challenge my abilities and like most I also have a job and social life. Which means I have limited mental ability and a very discrete pocket of time I can fully dedicate to leading a group of volunteers to craft successful Krampus Night events. Which considering the limitations really shouldn’t be possible.
Working with known volunteers however makes it possible.
I’ve been organizing events in this lovely town of ours for 20+ years and now have the luxury of only working with people I know and trust – people who have already shown me their skills, dependability and dedication.
While we know saying “no” to your offer to your kind offer to help can sound rude or clique-y, we hope you understand the reasons why. We do truly appreciate the offers.
INTENT
We also get lots of amazing ideas of how we can grow, expand and add even more amazing elements to Krampus Night. We say “no” to most of them. Every idea takes time, focus and money and we have decided to focus our resources on the core elements of our event that our fans know and love adding one or two elements a year to ensure gradual and manageable growth.
We plan to stay independent, by keeping our funding local, arts oriented and primarily from our fans (pssst the link to donate is the first comment here) and to be a Bloomington institution for many years. Basically, we just want to have fun & frighten.
GOALS
Our focus for the next couple years will be on crowd management to ensure a great experience for our growing fan base – defined handicapped accessible areas, portable restrooms, more EMTs, full distribution of trash cans, enhanced security, expanded insurance coverage and yes even stronger traffic control and safety.
We also hope to bring more Krampus to the streets of Bloomington and have them illuminated with even more fire.
We are so thankful for our fans! Thank you for your support. We look forward to being part of your family traditions, seasonal celebrations and nightmares!
RAWR!!!
Kel McBride
Lead Bloomington Krampus Wrangler
