FireFest Cancelled This Year

At the end of May, Tara Steffens, Pinckney Bend COO and former chair person of the FireFest, announced she could no longer chair the event. The decision did not come easily for her, but with Pinckney Bend expanding and rebranding, her responsibilities at the company necessitated her stepping aside from the volunteer position with FireFest.

FireFest has been around for 13 years and was started by Alan Bell the first year and expanded on for the next seven by Gary and Judy Rice and Lance Stroheker from Astral Glass. Tara then managed the next five years with support from the Pinckney Bend staff. Tara has maintained that she will be available to help in future FireFests if needed.

Downtown New Haven Inc. had looked into still staging the 2021 FireFest, but found that insurance for the event was difficult to procure/afford, which also caused an obstacle to the coordination of the event. 

There is hope for future iterations of FireFest, but without a coordinator or support from Downtown, 2021 will be flame resistant.