Don’t let scams ruin your Fall Festival
The Pahrump Fall Festival is a decades-long tradition that thousands look forward to every year and while the event is certainly an opportunity for amusement, it also creates the potential for bad actors to take advantage of those planning to attend. Phony ticket sales and other underhanded schemes have become more prevalent in recent years and officials are warning the community to beware, so scammers do not ruin their Fall Festival fun.
“With just weeks to go until our highly-anticipated Fall Festival, excitement is building and unfortunately, so are scam attempts targeting vendors, performers and attendees,” Nye County and Pahrump Public Communications Manager Arnold Knightly announced last week. “Let’s look out for each other and ensure this Fall Festival is safe and joyful for everyone.”
Knightly urged residents and those who will be visiting for the festival to utilize town-authorized sources for any kind of Fall Festival tickets or applications.
“Only download official vendor and performer applications from our town of Pahrump Fall Festival website,” Knightly instructed. “Only trust direct communications with Courtney Kenney, the official event coordinator.
“We strongly encourage purchasing rodeo and carnival passes at authorized locations listed on the festival webpage. Avoid buying from non-official third-party sellers, as these may be fraudulent,” Knightly continued, adding, “Share this message with your friends and family to help spread awareness and thank you for supporting our community.”
Fall Festival carnival tickets are $35 each for an all-day access pass while rodeo tickets are $15. Tickets can only be purchased using cash at the following locations: Pahrump Tourism Office, 400 Highway 160; Shadow Mountain Feed and Tack, 2031 W. Bell Vista Ave.; and Valley Electric Association, 800 E. Highway 372.
Get involved in this year’s Fall Festival
The Pahrump Fall Festival is slated for Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28 at Petrack Park. The theme for 2025 is “Out of this World” and parade entries to fit this motif are invited to sign up.
The big procession down Highway 160 is always a huge attraction, with spectators lining both sides of the highway to enjoy the show and it’s a great way for area businesses, organizations and entities to get their name out in the community.
Heading up the Pahrump Fall Festival Parade is the Kiwanis Club of the Pahrump Valley, with Reva Braun the point of contact. Parade entries are $40 each. Forms are available online and are due by Friday, August 29 at 4:30 p.m.
Any parade entries submitted after this deadline will be charged an additional $10 late fee. There is also an option for sponsor banners to be featured in the parade, which are $125 each.
Completed entry forms can be mailed or hand-delivered to the Salvation Army, 240 Dahlia St., Pahrump, NV, 89048. For more information on the parade contact Braun at 775-727-0911.
The parade is not the only area in which participants can show off their interpretation of the “Out of this World” theme, either. The Fall Festival’s Arts and Crafts/Food and Horticulture exhibit is another avenue for expressing creativity and displaying local talent, with the entry fee a modest $1. Entries from children under age 13 are free.
The Arts and Crafts/Food and Horticulture exhibit is run by a local group that knows plenty about putting on a show like this, the Shadow Mountain Quilters. For more than 30 years, the Shadow Mountain Quilters have been fostering artistic outlets through its own group and its members love a chance to involve others in such creative pursuits.
In the Arts Division, contenders can vie for top honors in all kind categories, from acrylics, oil paintings and computer generated art to black-and-white photography, general photography and more. There is also a section for creative writing, including poetry, narrative, lyric, verse, fiction, non-fiction, etcetera.
The Crafts Division includes various categories of beading, clay art, handcrafts, gourd art, paper craft, woodworking, dolls and of course, plenty of fabric-forward categories, ranging from needlework to quilting to knitting and everything in between.
For the valley’s gardeners and cottage-food cooks, the Food and Horticulture exhibit offers competitions for preserved foods, confections and baking and ornamental plants and arrangements, as well as contests for the best of a host of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs and other such gardening produce.
For additional details on the Arts and Crafts/Food and Horticulture exhibit, contact Joyce Higginbotham at JoyceInPahrump@gmail.com or 775-253-4885.
Vendor applications, parade entry forms and rules/registration information for the Arts and Crafts/Food and Horticulture exhibit can be found at PahrumpNV.gov/302/Pahrump-Fall-Festival. Call Kenney at 775-727-2825 with questions or for more information.
Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com
