Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center is event’s new
home
Morgan Hill – The Mushroom Mardi Gras festival is moving from Monterey Road and relocating to the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center after excessive rowdiness forced an early street closure last year.
The 28th annual festival will open May 26 at the community center near the corner of Monterey Road and E. Dunne Avenue. Parts of the two-day event will extend down Depot Street to Third Street.
Organizers decided to move the yearly festival off Monterey Road after a questionnaire last June showed merchants were unhappy with closing the street at 4pm on a Friday to allow for weekend preparations. The consensus of the merchants was to keep the street open until 9pm.
Festival organizers think that’s too late for the all-volunteer crews to start setting up for the giant event. There was also a desire to move the festival to a more spacious area. An estimated 50,000 people attended last year’s two day festival.
Organizers also were swayed by merchants’ complaints of drunken crowds yelling, swearing, blowing whistles and urinating in public.
“If downtown doesn’t want to have the festival, that’s fine,” event director Sunday Minnich said. “We’re really excited about having more room.”
The Mushroom Mardi Gras festival was started in 1980 by Morgan Hill firemen looking to raise money for equipment. The goal of the festival now is to provide a safe and fun celebration for the community while raising funds for scholarships and providing a venue for other non-profits to raise money.
The move to the community and cultural center is the second move in three years. The festival moved downtown in 2005 after losing a long-running spot at Community Park when construction began on the Centennial Recreation Center.
Last year organizers said downtown merchants’ concerns could lead to a festival hiatus if a new venue could not be found. Minnich said talk of moving to the community and cultural center started in July and the idea was finalized in October with a down payment to the city to rent the facility.
“Once we started talking about the possibilities, we became really excited,” Mushroom Mardi Gras Board of Directors President Dan Sullivan said. “The new location provides the park-like setting the board was looking for.”
The relocation isn’t discouraging to organizers, who plan to increase strolling musicians and street performers this year. The amphitheater behind the community center is intended to serve as a main stage for bands and plans for a second stage at Depot and Third streets are being discussed. Organizers are also looking to run a small train from the community center to the Caltrain station at Depot and Third streets, to make it easier for festival-goers to get from one end of the party to the other.
The new set-up is to include vendor booths and a food court in the Community Center parking lot. “Munchkin Land,” a popular attraction last year featuring games and rides for children, will be located on Depot Street.
