{"id":62152,"date":"2026-02-04T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62152"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:47:15","slug":"snowbird-extravaganza-cancels-annual-lakeland-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/04\/snowbird-extravaganza-cancels-annual-lakeland-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowbird Extravaganza cancels annual Lakeland event"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A long-running attraction for Canadian snowbirds in Central Florida has been canceled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual two-day ‘Snowbird Extravaganza’ used to bring tens of thousands of tourists to the city of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Snowbird Extravaganza has been around since 1995, and in 2000, the expo moved to the RP Funding Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, it had between 75 to 100 vendors showcasing products and services that cater to Canadian tourists who chose to spend their winters in the sunny South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We showcase entertainment on three stages in the facility,” explained Christopher Davidge, vice president of special events and marketing at Medipac International. “We have a hospitality center that has food and drink available.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expo’s organizer, Medipac International, made the hard decision to cancel its flagship event in Florida, Texas and Arizona this year because of a lack of support from local and national businesses and a decline in interest from guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re heartbroken because we love doing this,” Davidge said. “We’ve been doing it since 1995. We consider it to be a staple since 1995 and we consider it to be a staple of the winter visitor experience and yeah, we were proud to be a part of it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davidge added that since the COVID-19 pandemic, special event marketing hasn’t been what it’s used to be and exhibitors have found new, innovative ways to reach out to the public, including social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says it’s too soon to say whether the event will be back for 2027, but if there’s no vendor support, there may be no point in putting it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we don’t get that indication like we need then we have to make the unfortunate decision to focus our efforts elsewhere,” said Davidge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long-running attraction for Canadian snowbirds in Central Florida has been canceled. The annual two-day ‘Snowbird Extravaganza’ used to bring tens of thousands of tourists to the city of Lakeland. The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcL3ZsY3NuYXAtMjAyNi0wMi0wMi0xN2gyNm0wNHM4NzMud2VicD9maXQ9OTMyJTJDNTI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiU25vd2JpcmQgRXh0cmF2YWdhbnphIGNhbmNlbHMgYW5udWFsIExha2VsYW5kIGV2ZW50IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.cf68_SPxeufqcGylZD01I85PkGGWQvUk9KdfA1INuHcMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62153,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vlcsnap-2026-02-02-17h26m04s873.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13482],"class_list":["post-62152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-snowbird-extravaganza-cancels-annual-lakeland-event"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62154,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62152\/revisions\/62154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}