Now that it's October, the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce is doing something they wouldn't normally do. They're kindly asking people to stay away from the town, if they were planning to come during the weekend of their traditional Fall Festival, and come another time this month instead.
The Ellicottville Fall Festival usually brings 60- 70,000 people to the town over the Columbus Day weekend for various events, including a vendor market, carnival and more. The Chamber of Commerce had to cancel the festival this year due to COVID-19, but now they're concerned that even without the official event taking place, people may still flock to there next weekend to check out the foliage and do to their own fall activities.
The message from the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce? Come a different weekend instead, or better yet, during the week, or even wait until next year.
"That weekend is probably not going to be the best weekend to come down," said Barbara Pump of the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce. "The bars and restaurants are at 50% capacity. Most of them are taking reservations for that weekend and they're filling up quickly."
"We really want to give everybody an opportunity to come and enjoy the beautiful foliage,so we're not just concentrating on one weekend, we're trying to spread people out through the whole month of October," added Jane Esbaugh of Holiday Valley.
Holiday Valley will have multiple chair lifts going every weekend in October, along with golf, the Sky High Adventure Park, hiking, and biking.
For a list of more fall adventures around Ellicottville, click here.