By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Grayson Tourism wrapped up a year full of events with their Hometown Holidays celebration around the Christmas season, showcasing everything from a Festival of Trees to an ice-skating rink for Grayson residents and visitors to enjoy. Local businesses also joined in all along Main Street to add to the fun, with most offering special sales for the season. Now, as the decorations are all being packed away to await the next season, Grayson Tourism Director Lana Axtell said she would like the public to offer their views on both what went extremely well, and what could be improved in the future.
“It was a real busy event,” Axtell said of Hometown Holidays, before admitting that she, like many people, is still in the process of taking down her own Christmas décor.
“Give me until the middle of January and ask again,” she joked.
But while a lot of work went into setting everything up, and a lot of work is still left to do in breaking it all down, she said it was the time and effort.
“I think everyone had a really good time,” Axtell said of tourism’s most recent event. “We have gotten some good feedback and are always looking for more. I feel like the Festival of Trees went really well. And most of the kids’ activities went well.”
As always, Axtell said there is a learning curve. Once an event is put on, it pays to examine what went well and perhaps how things could have been done differently. The goal, she said, is to always be improving so that the residents of Grayson always have the best tourism has to offer.
“We have learned a lot this year,” Axtell said. “Like with the skating rink and the volunteer program. We had a cancellation from some of the volunteers with less than 24-hour notice, which could have put everything in a bind. Fortunately, East Carter Middle Football jumped in in a big way and covered most of the days we needed volunteers.”
To prevent this happening in the future, she said, tourism might discuss having paid positions to run the rink on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday during the event.
Axtell said the general consensus among the people who have reached out is that the skating rink is an amazing addition to Grayson, and they hope it continues to be available. And perhaps the next season, she said tentatively, her husband Rob Axtell might be offering skating lessons for kids when the rink is set up.
“We don’t have a lot of people around Grayson that can show people how to skate,” she said. “And I think people would love having that made available to them.”
And if there are other things they’d like to see, she said, tourism wants to hear about them too.
“I’d like to know what the public liked and what they didn’t like,” Axtell said. “What do they think we could improve? Did they like the skating rink hours and the location? And what did they think about the Festival of Trees and that process?”
Those were a few potential questions people could answer, she said.
“And what did they think about the kids activities, the Santa Shack, and the train station?”
Any insight people had to offer on the Christmas Market, and the general appearance of Downtown Main Street would also be welcome, she said.
The best way for the public to offer feedback, Axtell said, was to reach out through email. That email is graysonkytourism@gmail.com. An alternative contact would be to call the Grayson Tourism office at 606-474-8740 and leave a message. But however they choose to reach out, Axtell said, they’d love to hear the feedback. Afterall, there’s only 11 months to get prepared for the next holiday season.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
