{"id":45795,"date":"2020-01-17T01:26:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T06:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45795"},"modified":"2020-01-17T01:27:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T06:27:24","slug":"end-of-an-institution-no-more-lehigh-acres-spring-festival-after-more-than-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/01\/end-of-an-institution-no-more-lehigh-acres-spring-festival-after-more-than-40-years\/","title":{"rendered":"END of an institution &#8212; NO MORE Lehigh Acres Spring Festival after more than 40 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"109\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lehigh-Acres-Spring-Festival.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-38937\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lehigh-Acres-Spring-Festival.png 445w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lehigh-Acres-Spring-Festival-300x73.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 445px) 100vw, 445px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The End of a Lehigh Acres institution since 1975.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"269\" height=\"187\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MrMrsLehigh-Acres.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35727\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Lehigh Acres Festival organizers have officially changed the\nname and theme of the event, now calling it &#8220;Southwest Florida Hero\nFest.&#8221; Organizers cited a decline in interest as one of the main reasons\nfor the change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lehigh Acres Festival had also been a goodbye party for the\nseasonal residents of Lehigh Acres. But now, most of the unincorporated area of\nLee County has year-round residents living there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Southwest Florida Hero Fest is now a celebration to\nhonor heroes like police officers, firefighters, EMT&#8217;s etc.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carnival ride safety has been an issue in the past. In 2013,\ntwo kids were injured and went to the hospital after a ride malfunctioned.\nAnother ride malfunction in 2015 left eight kids&nbsp;trapped on a ride for\nmore than an hour, but none of them were injured.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s as safe as any carnival you can go to. We have\ninsurance. Our carnival has insurance. Our vendor has insurance. They all have\ntheir health certificates,&#8221; Culver said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the past incidents happened, the festival had been working with the carnival company &#8220;Modern Midways.&#8221; According to its website, &#8220;Megerle Shows&#8221; is the carnival company hired for Hero Fest.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastwebsites.xyz\/lehighfestivalwp2\/\">Website Link<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Hero Fest is from Feb. 6-9, 2020 on Joel Blvd. near the intersection at Bell Blvd. <strong>NOTE: it WILL NOT be in Veterans Park<\/strong>. Tickets are $20 and proceeds go to the local American Legion Post in Lehigh Acres.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The End of a Lehigh Acres institution since 1975.&nbsp; Lehigh Acres Festival organizers have officially changed the name and theme of the event, now calling it &#8220;Southwest Florida Hero Fest.&#8221;&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}