SARANAC LAKE — The kick-off meeting for the 2024 Winter Carnival is Sept. 12 and the event’s Chairman Rob Russell says the organizing committee is seeking new volunteers to step up and fill a couple vacancies.

The meeting will be held at the Elk’s Club at 30 Bloomingdale Ave. at 5:30 p.m.

The theme for this year’s week-long celebration of winter in February is “Creepy Carnival.” Though it has a spooky theme, Russell said they are planning for an “extremely family-oriented Carnival,” reveling in the eerie without getting too scary for the young ones.

Russell said they are seeking people to create the slide show for the closing fireworks, as well as a DJ and sound engineer to run the music during the fireworks show. He said he hopes to get an idea of who might have the skills to take this work on at the meeting.

He also said the committee will have some work to do rescheduling events to keep them from overlapping as they have in the past. Russell said he would also like to have backup chair positions in case anyone is not able to finish their work — kind of like an understudy for a play.

Russell also said the committee is looking to fill a new position of someone to coordinate collaboration with other nonprofits throughout the year. He said the Carnival committee is trying to have a presence at other events outside of Carnival.

These groups and businesses give too much to Winter Carnival, he said, and they want to return the help. This year, the committee assisted in putting on the Can-Am Rugby tournament and the Willard Hanmer Guideboat race.

This will be Russell’s first Winter Carnival kick-off meeting after being unanimously voted in as the new chairman following the 2023 Carnival, replacing long-time Chair Jeff Branch.