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Fall is one of the busiest seasons for events in Jessamine County. 

The Jessamine Fall Festival, Halloween-themed happenings, the downtown harvest festival, and the new Nicholasville Vibes Festival are a few of the events planned for the upcoming months.

Two of these event organizers—Ann Nip, who is organizing the Jessamine Fall Festival and its parade, and Roger Fields and Johnny Templin of the Jessamine County Homeless Coalition, who are organizing the new Nicholasville Vibes music festival—attended the Nicholasville City Commission Meeting on August 26 as part of the commission’s agenda.

Nip attended the meeting to discuss the fall festival and what she needs from the city. The festival was once hosted and funded by the homeless coalition, but since the Center for Growth and Hope has been acquired by Christ Embassy Church, the acquisition of the festival was included in the agreement. 

This year’s Fall Festival will be held from Wednesday, October 16, to Saturday, October 19. More information on the festival, carnival, and parade can be found at jessaminefallfestival.com. 

The fall parade will take the same route as last year—from Walgreens on Main Street to West Maple. Her main request for the parade and the festival, which are both free of charge to the public, is security from the Nicholasville Police Department. 

These events need to be manned by security for safety purposes, but Nicholasville Police Chief Michael Fleming emphasized how overbooking Nicholasville Police Officers for “practically every weekend in the fall,” as one Commissioner described it, can hurt their work-life balance. 

“We are willing to do [security for the] parades because that’s a public safety issue. Quite frankly, money is not worth the time with family these days,” Fleming said. He added that his recommendation was to go the route that large events hosted by private entities take– hiring their own security. 

He cited the Southland Christian Church, which has large events operated by a private security agency. 

The City Commission and Chief Fleming agreed that the Nicholasville Police Department should operate the parade but said they need more time to decide whether to provide security for the several-day-long fall festival. 

At the next City Commission meeting, Police Chief Fleming and the Council will decide for Nip whether the Police Department will man the festival. They also asked her to check with the Sheriff’s office since the event is in the City County park. 

Director of General Government Doug Blackford said Ann Nip has already paid the deposit for the parade, which is necessary if there are any damages. 

Jessamine County Homeless Coalition Director Johnny Templin and Roger Fields, a member of the event board, attended the meeting to discuss the one-day new music festival Nicholasville Vibes, which will be held on October 26, 2024, at the City-County Park. 

The event will be held from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., with gates opening at 11:30 a.m. to allow attendees a large window to arrive and settle. So far, the festival has sold about 130 tickets.

Templin stated they have already received a quote from GuardLogic, a private security agency. The festival committee is also in talks with Griffin Security. “We want to do security that takes as much burden as possible off of our Nicholasville Police Department,” Fields said. 

Fields and Templin are also talking to multiple parking experts to ensure it won’t be an issue for the festival—although the fall festival usually sees about 6-7,000 people on a busy night, according to a commissioner. To have enough money to put into next year’s festival and the JCHC shelter, the festival needs about 1,000 ticket sales. With this number, Templin said extra proceeds can even go towards other local nonprofits as a donation. 

Templin said the shelter’s goal is to raise about $20,000 to keep it afloat. After that, the plan is to use the extra money to help local nonprofits. Plenty of businesses are sponsoring the event, too, making it possible for the event to reach its monetary goals. 

Commissioners said they would be “thrilled” to see a thousand or more ticket sales, as this would help the local economy by attracting people to eat at local restaurants and stay in Jessamine County. 

The festival organizers still must apply for an alcohol permit, which, although commissioners said it takes a while to receive the permit, the City-County Park has had events surrounding alcohol before– like the Wine and Vine Festival. 

The city commission’s final concern was the homes behind one of the festival stages. Templin assured the commissioners that the festival team had intentionally placed the main stage as far away from the neighborhood as possible and that they would offer free tickets to the residents of those homes due to the inconvenience of noise. 

The last approvals the festival needs are from Jessamine County Judge-Executive David West and the Emergency Management Team.