MikeMooreMedia
Rockingham County Events, Festivals, Trails, Music 10.09.24
Tara Martin, Marketing Manager and Lindsay Pegg, Tourism Manager, Rockingham County Economic Development, Small Business and Tourism. What the Hay, Mayodan; Fall for Madison; Great Trails State Day; FAB Festival, Reidsville; Veteran's Parade, Madison, other events. Workforce Development Center, RCC.
www.VisitRoCoNC.com
Facebook.com/VisitRockinghamCounty,NorthCarolina
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Mike Moore Media. I'm checking in with our friends at Rockingham County Economic Development Small Business and Tourism. Tara Martin and Lindsay Pegg are on the line. Hey ladies, how you doing? Good morning Mike. Morning we're doing well. Could there be anything more to do in Rockingham County? I'm having a difficult decision deciding where to go what to do. So let's jump right in and bring us up today. What's happening? Yeah so you know as a Rockingham County resident I have often heard all my life that there's nothing to do in Rockingham County and you know I just I have to blatantly look at people and say are you kidding me because I'm sitting here looking at our event calendar on our new website now and it is just tremendous the amount of events that we have. So of course some of the big ones we want to hit on because there are literally way too many to the list all of them. But you know I just want to make note of the town festivals that are coming up over the next couple of weeks. So this coming weekend we have the what the hay festival that's going to be in Mayadan. That's going to be all day this coming Saturday October the 12th from 10 until nine. They do have some live music that will be happening throughout the day. There's going to be lots of great vendors that are there you know craft artisans. Just all kinds of things to experience in the town and on Saturday. So that's definitely the first one that I want to mention. And then you know we have two coming up on the 19th. So depending on what part of the county you're in you have something that you can visit. So next weekend October the 19th on Saturday is going to be the fall for Madison Festival. Again there's going to be a ton of vendors that are there at that particular festival they're going to have you know the whole Murphy Street set up and then kind of across that crisscross there in downtown Madison. Lots of different things that you can experience there. They usually have their little train ride for the kids. So definitely a good time. And then simultaneously in Reedville is going to be the fat festival with which is the food art and brew festival. And that'll be happening also on Saturday October the 19th from three until nine. That they're going to have some crafters there. They're definitely going to have food. They're going to have some artisans. And then of course some of our local breweries and surrounding area breweries as well will be there. I'm kind of showcasing their art of brews. So you know definitely lots of festivals happening. Again those are just the main festivals of course. If you like I said if you look at our event calendar to your point it's literally a little overwhelming you know sitting here trying to figure out okay they're all of these things happening which one am I actually going to go to. So we definitely encourage all of our residents and visitors to get out and really experience Rockingham County with those those homegrown festivals because there's just nothing like them. That's exactly right. So tell us where we can find this calendar and all of these events. Yes so we and we talked about this last month but just to reiterate we did just launch a new website for Rockingham County tourism. So you can go to www.visitroconc.com and up top you are going to see some tabs and if you just click on that events tab it'll take you to our calendar. If you scroll down just a little bit you're going to be scrolling for a while because the events just keep going on and on and on. Yeah yeah you're right about that okay well that that's kind of just hitting some of the highlights but as you said there's so much more there. Okay Lindsey I know you have some things too to tell us. Oh yes I do my. There's a couple things but kind of piggyback on things happening this weekend there are some outdoor related activities happening in the county. Readful will be hosting a Cortland Park stream cleanup and eco education day. It's this Friday October the 11th from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Now registration is required because there's some cool things that are kind of tied to this and so what you know this this event will feature the green throw eco bus and their participating friends and then participants who show up that day and sign up that day will get the chance to interact with some of the native animals here in the area. They'll be able to see the stormwater smart and virus gate and participate in a wetlands bio blitz. So this eco bus is actually a large bus that will be parked there at Cortland Park in Reesville and so we really do encourage all all of our families to kind of come out to this. It would be a lot of fun. It's only three hours. It's a good way to spend a Friday afternoon but that's happening this Friday October 11th. So if you go to Reesville's Facebook page to see a Reesville Facebook page you'll be able to see that or give them a call and they'll get you registered. And then yes so I do want to speak to this Mike and we all I think are aware of how the western side of the state's been impacted and in the this upcoming I think it's October it's Saturday October 19th Karen mentioned there's a lot of fall festivals. It is also North Carolina's great trail state day and it's now a state day that is a day that happens every year on the third Saturday of every October. This year's great trail state day has a little bit there's more of a meeting to it because of what's happened in the western side of our state who's who's basically their their economy really thrives on outdoor recreation and it was greatly impacted with the devastation from that Hurricane Helene brought in. So this upcoming great trail state day we've had to move what we call the creative trail event and that event was going to be held at Mayor River State Park but now because the state parks personnel are assisting with relief efforts in the western side of the state we have had to move that event to Ferris Park up in May-a-Dan and we are looking forward to it actually I was speaking with the organizer of the Virginia Edwards and we are so excited about this event and being able to utilize the resources that Ferris Park and the town of May-a-Dan have up there on the mountain and so I encourage everyone to come out this will actually this event is on Saturday like I've mentioned October 19th the great trail state day this is a great trail state event from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. so it's after those kind of at the telling of all those small festivals I really feel like you can do both if you just kind of schedule some time this event will have will have performers from the theater field will have a whole choir singing will have some Native American dancing out there lots of fun things really if you if you think about it we're programming the trail to feature all the arts that you will you can kind of experience here in the county visual arts is included as well so while our our hearts are kind of we are with those the second in western North Carolina we look forward on the 19th together in its community at that new location Ferris Park and kind of sharing a day of art and outdoor celebration in the spirit of resilience and those are jenny Edwards because she's absolutely fantastic so do encourage everybody to come out in the creative trail it's our second this is our second year doing this so if you're interested feel free it's up on our event page that Tara mentioned on visit roko NC calm or you can go to Rockin Rockingham County Arts Council's Facebook page and you'll see it there as well but we're really looking forward to celebrating our diverse trail system on October 19th I'll be out there as well but with the visit roko and I'll have some really cool great trail state day flag to kind of hand out but it's it's a wonderful opportunity just kind of experiential unlike you know you would ever see before yeah the creative trail yeah what a cool event that is so so that's been rescheduled moving from Mayo River State Park to a Ferris Memorial Park and made in okay thank you for that update okay you just said something there Lindsey - and I know you all were at River Fest and had a lot of good materials there to put in visitors and residents hand so any upcoming visits that we need to check that you you're out and about with some of these festivals oh let's see what what are we good I know I will be at the creative trail I'll probably I'm gonna try to stop by I don't have a table or a booth set up for the what the hay festival but I would definitely be downtown you know Mike I don't know I've got a the grand trail is my next the next big one on night okay since outdoor recreation is it's kind of what we like to promote here in the county and it's such a great day to kind of highlight all the assets that we have other assets that we have in the county I'll definitely be there I will try my best to kind of pop into most of these festivals and just check it out but it you know really the night he's gonna be a busy day so it'll be a lot of fun to kind of make my way around the county yeah oh that'll be great all right well you know and I'm thinking you've hit some of the highlights here ladies but haven't even mentioned Halloween there's so many Halloween events coming up oh my goodness trick-or-treat trunk-or-treat not only at towns and cities but you know schools and fire stations and everything else right now I was literally looking at our calendar yesterday just a number of trucker treats and and that type thing that is happening coming up and the good thing is is like because of where Halloween falls this year it seems like we're just gonna have a week-long celebration happening the Saturday before some of them will be happening on Halloween night so there are literally so many and they're spread throughout the county one thing that we typically do is we do put together a list because it can be a little overwhelming at the number of trucker treats that we have so as we get closer to Halloween and some of these get added to the calendar we'll be putting out a listing probably the week before Halloween just because some of these will be happening the Saturday before so so definitely be on the lookout on our Facebook page for that and like I said we'll have all of those listed out so it'll be easy to follow you don't have to navigate through all of the other plethora of events that we have on our on our website so so definitely keep an eye out for that and then as we talk about all things spooky I you know would like to to mention that this year Madison Dry Goods which many should know at this point was featured on Netflix a couple years ago for the 28 days haunted series if you've never visited Madison Dry Goods even without spooky season it is a must visit it really is you know and it does have a tendency to send a few little chills down your spine even in the light of day but they do have an event that they're going to be doing October the 25th it is a ticket only event many of the time slots and actually I think they're doing it on October the 25th and the 26th because I got tickets for the 26th I'm just gonna mention that but it's a ghostly encounter event so Madison Dry Goods was featured by Visit NC for their first and fright initiative that they started this year which is just a tremendous accolade for our county and for Madison Dry Goods that you know there is so much activity that that it got state recognition but this year they are expanding on what they've done in the past so not only will you have the opportunity to do some paranormal exploring with some paranormal investigators out of Stokes County but you're also going to visit and that's that Madison Dry Goods you're also going to visit Jordan cabin and the law firm skills yes which is just right around the corner there's two historical buildings that that are blocks away from each other and Madison if you've never visited them so it's going to be a three-hour event like I said it is a ticketed event the best way to find that is to go on our website go to our events page that event is listed on there so you will be able to click on that and it'll take you to the ticket page that those tickets are going quick so if that's something that you feel like you might enjoy you might want to go ahead and get those tickets secured like I said I have mine I made sure I'm the first hour and then and then Mike and they're real quick yeah that is a great there's another event on the 25th that's ticketed the museum in archives of Rockingham County that sits right here in the middle of the county in Wentworth the old courthouse as it's people like to refer to it they're actually hosting a murder mystery night and it's a ticketed event and tickets are almost sold out so if you if you're a fan of murder mystery they're gonna be holding this at right tavern which the building in itself is historical it's historic and I'm really excited about this the museum is really excited about this so take part in kind of like a they're gonna try to do it a different murder mystery throughout the year so a lot of fun there's gonna be a lot of history that they're gonna talk about but I think there'll be costumes involved as well so you can also check that out on our events with web page on visit roger.com visit roger.com yeah and you know and Mike I just I do just want to reiterate you know in 15 minutes it is hard to go over everything that we have and we have barely you know graced the surface of all of the amazing events that are happening I mean literally I could go through and list everything happening and it's like when do you get it yes and it would be like an hour long segment so we just can't reiterate enough please be sure to check out our event calendar on our website because and you can and if we've missed anything because that does tend to happen when you have hundreds of events you can actually submit your event on our site as well and it's right there on the event page so definitely thumb through get your itinerary down because if you're here in ROCO and you're saying that there's nothing to do you're obviously not looking in the right place yes yes well what is the best number to get to you there let's mention that yeah so the main line here to our office is 336-342-8138 and that just rings our general line so that gets either Lindsey or myself that's the best way to tie one of us down mm-hmm yeah okay yeah you're right yeah there's too much dimension in this little bit of time we could go on and own for a long time you know and I see one we won't be back together before this but I wanted to get a plug in for this the Veterans Day parade in Madison Saturday November 9th and with fireworks that's a $5,000 fireworks display at the end of that so yeah that's gonna be here really neat event too so just one more thing to add to the calendar yes thank you yes thank you Mike thank you for highlighting that the Madison and the downtown Madison merchants and I think right for your home is a partner as well they're very excited about this and it's like everyone's welcome to participate you can you can see the flyer there I think Madison the kind of Madison posted on their Facebook page we have it up as well and the Madison merchant guilds have it up on their Facebook page so it could be a lot of fun it's a great in a great celebration and a bit shut up to all of our veterans as well so and then the fireworks at the end right there I think they're hoping that they can put them you know shoot them off right there near right around the town clock area yeah mm-hmm okay wow okay and then oh speaking of parades more head homecoming parade this Friday 4 o'clock so with another parade yes oh gosh absolutely oh that's a whole other podcast Mike more a great season so I know you've seen about that yeah and look at all of the Christmas stuff that's coming up in Stonewall and all of everywhere oh my goodness all righty we're going to expand this program ladies and gentlemen next time thank you both it's always a delight to talk to you and I know the your team hard at work all around the county with so many good things thank you for that all the best no thank you thank you Mike we appreciate you know just having the time to really get this information out to your listeners to the county to you know visitors as they come in you know and really trying to help them navigate all things to do in Rocco and one more thing yeah we've already gone over time let's think in just another minute let's talk about the visitor guide that's available all around the state as well yeah so the visitor guide this is something that we have taken great pride in the last two years it has been completely revamped you know before it was just kind of great service of some of the things that we had had to do in Rockingham County but we just felt like it really just did a disservice to to you know what you can experience here by just giving you a handful of things so we went back to the drawing board completely revamped everything is listed in there of course up to date as it can be when you go to print but we have it broken down into segments that are easy to follow so if you are looking in for somewhere to get some art culture and entertainment we have a section for that if you want a place or to find a place to stay we have a a section for that if you're looking to come here and get you know a meal that you may not get anywhere else we have a place for that if you're looking for spirits and brews we have you know that included our event venue so one of the things that you know we often forget about is that Rockingham County is a beautiful place to host an event particularly weddings we have some incredible just breathtaking wedding venues so we have those listed out you know we this year we made sure that we really pay tribute to our parks and trails because I feel like there hasn't been a designated spot for those to live so we gave them their own place in the visitor guide we also have a map of all of those trails and parks around the county which is huge you know outdoor recreation Lindsay mentioned this that is one of our biggest drivers for visitors to our county is outdoor recreation so making sure that we allow those that are picking up this visitor guide you know the opportunity to explore all of those things whether their interests are in golf whether their interests are in this golf whether their interests are in getting out on the rivers and lakes that we have here in the county so you know really trying to lay that out for them and then also you know our county is very unique in the fact that we have our our cities and towns with each one being significantly different than the other so making sure to highlight those and given them their own place within that visitor guide so that when visitors come in they can really write their hands around getting a true visit of Rockin and County and knowing where to go once they get here so we are actually in the pre-planning phase of next year's visitor guide because let's face it this guide is is a living document as soon as it goes to print you know something either goes out of business or opens up so so it's constantly being updated and we do that on an annual basis so like I said conversations have begun as we start planning for next year so definitely be on the lookout for that oh my goodness that that's an incredible resource great tool there for sure and you know let's mention also because you've got there the Visitor Center your office is there in in Whitworth Readsville tell us where you are located maybe someone's listening a visitor someone planning a trip to the area or maybe someone who's been here a while and thinking you know I've missed a lot of stuff here because you've got walls of of pamphlets and and not even mentioning the your your quilt trail guide and the blue way got you know all of that that we have here in Rockingham County and incredible things to do here but for all around the state as well so how do we find your place yes so obviously the fiscal address 425 NC Highway 65 and Readsville you can plug that into the GPS but if you're like me I like to tell people to you know take a left turn at the little tree and then follow that to the thought sign that's how I operate but but we are actually located in the back parking lot of the governmental center so if you pull into the main governmental center complex just follow the signs around to either economic development or help in human services that will get you in the same direction and our office is located in the very back parking lot directly across from social services we have two flat holes out front we have a sign that says economic development so we should be pretty easy to recognize once you get into the back area of the governmental center but that's just directly across from RCC so if you had a have a pleasure coming to the governmental center most people know where RCC is located we're directly across the street mm-hmm where the new workforce development center has just done yeah we have the opportunity to tour that workforce development center a couple weeks ago at its grand opening and I'm telling you what that is going to be and that's a whole other segment in and of itself but you know that is just going to be a tremendous asset you know for the residents of Rockingham County the industries in Rockingham County you know really preparing our workforce you know for the future of you know staying here in Rockingham County and developing those careers you know so I can't even begin to express how much of a of a asset that's going to be you know for for so many people that's exactly right yeah well good things happening all the time all year long at here in Rockingham County at so many different places all right thank you again always good to talk to you and we'll see you in about on the trails and at the events absolutely Mike we look forward to it all right bye bye all right that's our monthly podcast with Rockingham County economic development small business in tourism and that's Tara Martin marketing manager and Lindsey Pegg tourism manager okay again let me remind you about the new updated website visit roco in c.com and follow them on Facebook visit Rockingham County North Carolina get out and about it and enjoy all of the wonderful things happening in our wonderful Rockingham County [BLANK_AUDIO]