Jan. 11—CHEYENNE — After facing community backlash from a recent decision to bump the 2024 Cowboy Christmas Market for a high school wrestling tournament, Laramie County commissioners have backtracked on their decision.

Instead, the market will remain on the second week of December for 2024 and allow more time for planning in 2025.

“I think it’s perfectly reasonable for Simplicity 307 to ask for the date from this year, and then move forward with the wrestling tournament for 2025,” said Commissioner Linda Heath. “That way we all have a better chance of planning.”

When the commissioners made the initial decision to change the dates, Heath said she was unaware of all the context and impact this would have on the community and the local economy. In an attempt to illustrate the unfair treatment of Simplicity 307, the organizers of the annual craft fair, she asked her fellow commissioners what would happen if they told the Cheyenne Livestock Expo that they can’t have the dates that they usually anticipate in November.

Commissioners Gunnar Malm and Buck Holmes both expressed discontent with how this situation has unfolded publicly, as Commission Chairman Troy Thompson received much of the backlash for the initial decision in the form of online harassment.

“That leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” Malm said, “when a business partner that we want to do business with, that does a great community benefit, frames an argument in a way that casts a bad light on one person when it was a body that made the decision.”

The controversy largely stems from miscommunication between parties. Simplicity 307 said they were never informed of the commission’s intent to change their dates until after a decision was made. Although they said they had signed a contract to host the event as usual, Laramie County Events Director Dan Ange said he did not receive a signed contract until Dec. 29, while the commissioners’ decision was on Dec. 18.

Simplicity 307 said they received the contract on Nov. 18 and returned it signed via email on Nov. 20. Ange speculates that the email never made it into his inbox because the attachments were too large.

“I want to see a way forward,” Heath said. “I don’t want to hear the tit-for-tat, so-and-so said this, and so-and-so said that. That’s in the past; we’ve got to get past that.”

Heath’s support for the vendors was met with applause from the nearly 30 attendees who came to listen to the discussion with the governing body.

Thompson said the Laramie County School District 1 organizers of the Charlie Lake wrestling tournament are OK with this resolution for 2024.

“It just shows our children that if there’s a problem, there’s always a solution,” one unidentified attendee said at the end of the meeting. “It may not be the nicest way or the best way, but we can come together. That’s one of the things I love about Wyoming, and particularly Cheyenne, is we can make it happen together. We may not like what somebody else says, but at the end of the day, I feel like both of you apologized and both of you came to a good, clean solution.”

Last week, a group of community members — composed of small business owners, vendors and event organizers — met with Thompson to speak out against the county’s decision to bump the dates for the Cowboy Christmas Market in 2024 to a different weekend to allow for the wrestling tournament to take place at the Event Center at Archer.

Meeting attendees spoke of the economic impact this change would have on the county and on other nonprofits and fundraisers.

On Thursday, the full Board of County Commissioners was present to discuss the issue. The governing body decided to continue to host the crafts market on the second weekend of December in 2024. Beginning next year, the Charlie Lake wrestling tournament will take place that same weekend at Archer, instead of 2024. Cowboy Christmas will likely move to the first or third weekend of the month, or both.

The market has been hosted by Simplicity 307 on that weekend at Archer for the past six years. Lindsey Taylor Groves, partner and chief operating officer of Simplicity 307, said this decision by the commissioners allows them more time to plan to avoid negative economic impacts for the county and other fundraisers.

“If we had moved Cowboy Christmas for 2024 up this year, it would basically decimate a good chunk of several business owners, nonprofit organizations and fundraisers that have been established inside Cheyenne and Laramie County for over 30 years,” Groves said. “It would wipe out a lot of that money that goes right back into the economy and goes back into the nonprofits and our communities in the county.”

Cowboy Christmas is the largest free craft and vendor market in Wyoming. In 2023, between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees browsed the 228 vendor stands at Archer. For this reason, Groves is concerned with how moving to the first or third weekend of December would impact fundraisers that already have their dates set in stone.

For 55 years, the Women’s Civic League of Cheyenne has hosted its Christmas House fundraiser on the first week of December, where they sell crafts and baked goods. For 32 years, Alta Vista Elementary has hosted a craft fair on the same weekend. The Cheyenne Winter Farmers’ Market takes place on the first and third weekends of December.

Simplicity 307 officials said that forcing vendors and small businesses to choose which event to go to will negatively impact both the revenue of the vendor and the cash raised for fundraisers.

She said that the average vendor at Cowboy Christmas makes between $1,000 and $3,000 per day, much higher than any of the other fundraisers. Simplicity 307 estimates that Cowboy Christmas generates between $150,000 and $450,000 in tax revenue for the county.

Noah Zahn is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s local government/business reporter. He can be reached at 307-633-3128 or nzahn@wyomingnews.com. Follow him on X @NoahZahnn.