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Officials Announce Summer Fest ’17 At Plattsburgh City Beach

Mayor Colin Read (left) and Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau Director of Tourism Kristy Kennedy
City of Plattsburgh
Mayor Colin Read (left) and Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau Director of Tourism Kristy Kennedy

Officials in Plattsburgh have announced a new summer event to be held at the city beach in conjunction with professional fishing tournaments on Lake Champlain.
There are numerous fishing tournaments on Lake Champlain each summer and this year one of the bass tournaments offers an opportunity for local tourism officials to expand activities at the city beach.

The Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau, a division of the North Country Chamber of Commerce, will co-sponsor two new events on July 29th and 30th and is calling the festivities “Summer Fest.”  Director of Tourism Kristy Kennedy:  “We have for many years hosted the pro bass fishing tournaments.  We have five of them coming this year in 2017. One of them being July 27th through the 30th, which is the Bassmaster Elite Series, which is kind of the Super Bowl of all fishing tournaments.  Well that happens to be coming with this huge outdoor expo for visitors and residents to enjoy.  And at the same time we are also hosting that same weekend East Coast WaterCross, which is a jet skiing competition which will take place at the city beach.”

“They can go upwards of nearly 90 miles an hour and it’s incredibly exciting.  They have to make their way around and through a course racing each other.  It’s going to be really thrilling.”  Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read:  “It’s kind of hard to follow the bass boats around, up and down the lake to see what they’re doing.  But this new watercross is very visual and very exciting for spectators on the beach. It’s kind of like a motocross motorcycle race but on the water instead of on the land. And those little jet skis can have as much as 400 horsepower, which is kind of like a super tricked-out sports car would have 400 horsepower, they have in those little jet skis.  So this is really exciting. It’s a really wonderful series.”  

Kennedy hopes that the new Outdoor Expo and Watercross events bring more non-anglers lakeside during the fishing tournaments.  “With both of the events being on the city beach that weekend we are creating for the first time this year Summer Fest 2017, which is going to be this family fun friendly outdoor recreation event on the city beach for two days.  See the anglers do their weigh-ins, get to meet some of the pros, watch the competition take shape on the lake and really just get involved in everything outdoor rec that these two events have to offer.”

A 2015 study issued by the Adirondack Coast Visitors’ Bureau found that fishing tournaments on the Plattsburgh side of Lake Champlain brought in approximately $2.1 million to the local economy.