 Let's spend just over a week since the 73rd annual water carnival wrapped up for another year. Josh Peterson spoke with JCs and some downtown businesses to get their take on how the split location this year worked out. For six days, the public had a chance to check out the thrills and spills at the Samford Center and some food and entertainment at the waterfront. This year was the first time the JCs have tried a split location that was a direct result of a compromise made when the carnival was originally planned to be held on 4th Street in downtown Bemidji. Overall, the JCs say the split location worked surprisingly well. The split location went better than we thought it was going to. We were a little nervous about it, but it actually ended up working pretty well for a lot of our special events and for the carnival. While the split location worked well for the JCs, they realized it was a lot more work. Getting that to be able to do a split location will require an increase in the size of their JC chapter's membership. Membership will be a huge factor for next year's water carnival. We definitely learned that we need more volunteers to help if we have the two locations. So we'll be looking at what our membership numbers are for next year before we make a decision for the next carnival. After the idea of putting the water carnival down on 4th Street was scrapped and the JCs came up with the compromise of having a split location, downtown businesses were happy that at least something was downtown. However, some are still holding out hope for the future that the whole entire water carnival will make a home back downtown. Put it this way, it's better in a split location than not having it at all. But I'd really, really like to see it all come back downtown. While the JCs enjoy a successful run of their carnival, it won't be long until the process of planning the 74th annual water carnival will begin. In Bemidji, Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. And the dates for next year's carnival have already been announced. The 74th annual water carnival will run June 29th through July 4th. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.