The organizers of Jim Thorpe’s popular Fall Foliage Festival are planning to drop the event from four to three weekends in October.

Jim Thorpe Tourism Agency President James Dougher said planning for the event has already started with its members “understanding the fourth weekend with the Halloween Parade is likely not going to work out.”

Members of Jim Thorpe Borough Council gave its blessing to three weekends of entertainment, food and craft vendors during Thursday night’s workshop with only food vendors permitted on the final weekend of October.

“I’d like to still see food vendors on that fourth weekend because people are still going to come,” Council Vice-President Mike Yeastedt said. “The train is still going to come in and dump a bunch of people. They are going to need somewhere to eat. There are a limited amount of fixed building food places.”

The festival has seen a continued increase in attendance over the past several years. Aided by great weather and Halloween events taking place the same weekend, traffic logjams got so bad on Oct. 28, 2023, police put a plan in place to turn nonresidents away until traffic began moving again.

A three-weekend event, Chief Joe Schatz said, won’t change too much for the police department.

“We actually plan for six weeks, not for the festival per say, but we have to prepare for people to be here no matter what,” Schatz said. “We are not decreasing our staff at all. There has been a lot of meetings and planning going on. We’re hoping to see a difference this year, but we have to accommodate for everything.”

Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said meetings with entities such as the Carbon Chamber and Economic Development Corporation and the Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau have yielded efforts to take pressure off Jim Thorpe.

“We’re working with other municipalities to get a list of events in other areas to promote as well as a list of restaurants in those areas and a list of overflow parking areas,” Sterner said. “We might still get people coming for four weekends, but at least we’ll have some place to send them.”

While nobody lobbied to keep the event at four weekends, Council President Greg Strubinger said Thursday he would be in favor of a two-weekend festival.

“I envisioned something akin to Musikfest in Bethlehem, which is two weeks,” he said. “It can’t be an endless thing like it has turned into.”

Dougher said parking would be available again at Immaculate Conception Church, Sam Miller Field and Mauch Chunk Lake Park.

“From what I understand, the lake will expand parking to hold 200 vehicles and they are going to run slightly bigger buses,” he said.

If approved as presented, the festival would run on the weekends of Oct. 5-6, Oct. 12-13 and Oct. 19-20.