{"id":9330,"date":"2025-10-16T17:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=9330"},"modified":"2025-10-16T17:58:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:58:50","slug":"groups-wants-more-food-festivals-and-fun-on-liverpool-waterfront","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/10\/16\/groups-wants-more-food-festivals-and-fun-on-liverpool-waterfront\/","title":{"rendered":"Groups wants more food, festivals and fun on Liverpool waterfront"},"content":{"rendered":"
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QCCR hosted a session on Thursdy to generate ideas for events on the Liverpool waterfront and elsewhere. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

A food truck festival, a chili cookoff and Movies on the Mersey were among the dozens of ideas for Liverpool\u2019s Privateer Park tossed around Wednesday evening at Queens Place Emera Centre.<\/span><\/p>\n

QCCR hosted a community meeting to generate ideas for more events on the Liverpool waterfront and elsewhere in Queens County.<\/span><\/p>\n

Station manager Norm Amirault said he wanted to hold the session after seeing some comments on Facebook about people wanting more to do in Privateer Park.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd honestly, I’d felt that way myself,” he said in an interview. “You have this beautiful park, and you wonder why there aren\u2019t more activities going on there. \u2029I always thought if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. \u2026 And based on the feedback tonight, there’s a ton of good ideas out there that people really do want to see more activities there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

About 20 people discussed ideas for a more vibrant waterfront, like holding more seasonal festivals similar to last March\u2019s Light Up Queens Winter Night Festival, more events targeted toward youth, encouraging more performing arts besides music in the park. And there was even talk of a Beatles festival.<\/span><\/p>\n

Min Smale is the secretary-treasurer of the South Queens Chamber of Commerce. She\u2019s also the chair of the Privateer Days committee, which holds the popular annual festival in the park every June.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was impressed with people\u2019s ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think they’re fantastic, and I think it’s really going to revitalize both the waterfront or Privateer Park as well as some of the smaller, lesser-known venues across Queens. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I think it was great to see the younger folks come in here and enjoy the conversation. They need to be involved in the music and the entertainment scene here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of those young people was Easton Goodwin. He and some of his high school bandmates were at the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad I came out tonight. \u2029Usually, not a lot of people like me come out to this kind of thing. And it’s such a great opportunity, you know? There’s a lot of voices in Queens County that really need to be heard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely do have some highlights, such as the Astor Theatre, a lot to explore there, but also, you know, a group of teens want to hang out Friday night, where do they go? \u2029So, some spots for people to just explore, hang out with friends, and more opportunities for the youth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of roadblocks exist in turning the ideas into reality — finding enough funding and volunteers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton told the group that while the municipality can\u2019t fund everything, there could be some money available for certain events.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amirault said he\u2019ll collect the ideas into some common themes, and then approach some local groups like the chamber to try to get things going.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe as we talked about bite sized pieces, partnerships, and focus on a few things and do them well. Maybe that’s a reasonable first step.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/privateerparkideasoct1525.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A food truck festival, a chili cookoff and Movies on the Mersey were among the dozens of ideas for Liverpool\u2019s Privateer Park tossed around Wednesday evening at Queens Place Emera Centre. QCCR hosted a community meeting to generate ideas for more events on the Liverpool waterfront and elsewhere in Queens County. Station manager Norm Amirault […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2298,2094,1820,39,1822,2164,3079,295,1675,194,620,49,351,24],"class_list":["post-9330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-culture","tag-easton-goodwin","tag-events","tag-liverpool","tag-liverpool-waterfront","tag-min-smale","tag-music","tag-norm-amirault","tag-performing-arts","tag-privateer-days","tag-privateer-park","tag-queens-county","tag-queens-place-emera-centre","tag-region-of-queens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9336,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions\/9336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}