Eustis/Stratton To Hold First ‘Maine Bigfoot Festival’ This Fall

A business owner from the Eustis/Stratton area is teaming up with the Maine Bigfoot Foundation to create the state's first-ever "Maine Bigfoot Festival" this fall, and it all started because she took a road trip with her kids last summer.

Lee'Ann Delcourt's family has owned the Spillover Motel in Stratton since 1987. She and her husband, a retired veteran, took it over in 2014 and acquired a neighboring structure nearby in 2016. Since then, the couples has been running the Spillover Motel and Inn at Stratton Brook.

Delcourt says she took her kids on a road trip to Utah last summer and came across all sorts of different Bigfoot attractions. That led the family to start listening to some Bigfoot podcasts, and then they narrowed in on Bigfoot in Maine podcasts, where they learned all sorts of interesting information about this legendary character.

"Nothing I'd ever thought about before. So through listening to podcasts this summer in Utah about Bigfoot in Maine, I got connected to the Maine Bigfoot Foundation, which I didn't even know there was such a thing. And I ended up having them...come to do a Bigfoot informational meeting in Stratton Eustis this past winter. And we had probably 20 or 30 people show up. Mike Vashon, who's on the board, did a little presentation on what's happening in Maine with Bigfoot, and we did the Bigfoot footprints, the casting of footprints, and stuff."

"From there, I just got thinking, whether you believe in Bigfoot or not, it's a great business opportunity. "

Delcourt spoke with the Maine Bigfoot Foundation board and came up with a plan to hold the first-ever Maine Bigfoot Festival this coming fall.

She did some research on some of the other Bigfoot Festivals across the country and says there's definitely potential to build this into something big.

"I don't know if I believe in Bigfoot or not. I think the stories are fascinating."

"Eventually, this could bring in thousands and thousands of people to our area and give us a nice little economic boost.

She's now officially a board member, and with the other members, she's taken to planning this first festival.

"Because it seems like we're going to have so many people coming, we're going to spread it out and do kind of like a Red Robin thing. So we'll have one speaker at one spot all day and have a number of teaching sessions, so that every business will get a group of new people every hour and a half or so... We're going to have experts; educational speakers, maybe some offers. We're trying to get a contact with the International Cryptozoology Museum down in Portland."

"So we're going to do some educational booths, some speakers...there is going to be a calling contest. We're going to have a campfire Saturday night, sort of like a storytelling time where we have some of our people share their encounters, which I think is going to be fun. And then on Sunday morning, we're going to do a Bigfoot expedition. So we're going to actually have several groups of people, and we're going to go out into the local woods and look for Bigfoot signs and teach people what to look for."

She and her kids have been leaving gifts out in the woods for Bigfoot since returning home from their trip to Utah. So far, Bigfoot hasn't taken any of the gifts, but they still think it's cool.

"It's just the right time, you know? It's going to be two days, October 18th and 19th. Right now, we have 1.3 thousand people who are interested in coming. This will be our first one, so I don't even know what to expect, but I feel like it's taken on a life of its own at this point. "

Delcourt says she's excited to make this an annual event, getting speakers and vendors involved.

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If you want more information, you can check out the Maine Bigfoot Festival Event Page.