The Arlinghaus Summer Sendoff gives locals a reason to celebrate the end of the season

On Sept. 18, the city of Erlanger, the Cincinnati Circus Company and Arlinghaus Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning are throwing a party, called the Summer Sendoff. The collaborative effort was created in hope of bringing the community together and celebrating the end of summer right.

Organizers have been working on the Summer Sendoff for more than a year after taking 2020 off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“[The Summer Sendoff] is giving all of our entertainers and employees, including myself, a lot of hope that the community is going to get back to normal,” says J. Laubach, Arlinghaus Summer Sendoff organizer. “And that people can start seeing each other again and being happy and doing fun things.”

Erlanger Mayor Jessica Fette agrees, saying that the community is looking for normalcy again.

“A return to interacting and engaging with the community around us has been missing and is so desperately needed for the mental well-being of our society,” Fette says. “With the postponement of the Summer Sendoff in 2020, it only gave us more time to make this event better than ever imagined.”

From 2 to 10 p.m., the Summer Sendoff will have arts and crafts booths, six bounce houses, aerial shows performed by the Cincinnati Circus Company, food trucks, and pie and coney eating contests. The event will close with a fireworks show sponsored by Silverlake Recreation.

The Cincinnati Circus Company, which is performing aerial shows every 30 minutes, is a fully athletic circus with aerial chair stackers, trapeze artists, jugglers, fire performers and more. The company also plans events, with murder mystery parties and casino nights in their repertoire.

“Our entertainers tell us all the time that their favorite events are the ones where they can see the audience smiling and eyes lighting up and kids cheering and people clapping,” Laubach says. “They know that they’ve done a good job with the audience.”

Fette cites the coney and pie eating contests as her favorite events.

“We are getting awesome feedback about these activities,” Fette says. “These contests are a throwback to a past event that the city used to put on called Heritage Day. Mixing the heritage and history with some new, fresh ideas is always a recipe for inclusion and togetherness.”