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The new Oremfest logo. The city was forced to change the name of the annual summer celebration from Summerfest after a cease-and-desist letter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Courtesy Orem City

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Sadie Loveland, of Provo, fist-bumps Orem Mayor Richard Brunst after she won the Wienerschnitzel Hot Dog Eating Contest as part of Orem's Summerfest held Thursday, June 13, 2019, at City Center Park in Orem.

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald file photo

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For over 50 years, Orem residents would gather together every summer and celebrate the city with Summerfest. People will still gather together June 5-10 for a talent show, parade, car show and hot dog easting competition, but now it’ll be under a new banner — Oremfest.

According to a video shared on the city’s Facebook page, the change is due to a cease-and-desist letter sent to Orem by Milwaukee late in the summer of 2022.

“We would either have to sign a licensing agreement or pick a different name for our summer event. After considering all of our options, we landed on something so groundbreaking, so original, so revolutionary that no one’s ever though of it before,” City Council member Debby Lauret said in the video. “Many in the community already refer to this event as Oremfest, so it’ll be an easy switch for some. For those that need more time, you can refer to it as the event formerly known as Orem Summerfest.”

According to Peter Wolfley, city spokesperson, the city hoped to have a case to keep the name due to its 50-year use. The Milwaukee Summerfest group, though, first held its celebration in 1969. The Orem City Council and Summerfest Committee considered several alternative names, including FamilyFest, before deciding to move forward with Oremfest.

“Since our city is the only city named Orem in the world, we feel pretty safe with the new name, but we’re going to trademark it just in case,” Wolfley said.

Orem’s summer celebration has changed frequently over its half-century in existence. The annual parade has grown and changed — including the 22-year run of the pageant light parade — with fireworks at the end and a host of other events. The most prominent changes in the past decade include the occasional addition of GeezerFest, adding the hot dog and pie-eating competitions and 2020’s Summerfest Lite, a response to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Even though it’s disappointing to part with the Summerfest name after 51 years, we’re excited to rename and rebrand the event to focus more on celebrating all the things we love about Orem. Summerfest is a super generic name for an event. In fact, there are at least two other cities in Utah, Logan and South Jordan, that have a Summerfest. This actually has been a good way to distinguish ourselves and make the event more Orem-centric,” Wolfley said.

The 2023 festival theme is “Be the One.” The event schedule is available at http://oremfest.org.

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