Re “Not So Fast on the Summer Music Festival”
Having commanded a $10,000 fee for staging the Summer Music Festivals in the Courtyard of City Hall for the past decade, Gary Mandell thought he could help the city’s financial crunch and rescue the imperiled Festival by offering to work for free this year.
Last seen at last night’s City Council meeting, members were saying, “Not sure.” They want to think over the structure and the maintenance of the Festival for two more weeks, which is what the last two weeks also were about.
The fate of the Revenue-starved Festival remained dangling, without leaning in either direction.
Neither the producer nor City Hall officials are predicting the outcome.
A smile was a mile from Mr. Mandell’s enigmatic expression after the meeting as he stood in the brightly lighted lobby of Council Chambers. “There is not a lot of time,” he was saying rather blankly. “Getting sponsors. That is what takes the time. I don’t know if I got that point across. But somebody needs to start finding sponsors now.”
Mr. Mandell hopes to spread the workload in a cost-clipping move to keep the Festival alive.
But he says he can’t bear the entire burden.
“If they expect me to go out and get the sponsors and do all this in addition to being the producer,” he said, “well, we just have to define our roles. I have to talk to (City Manager) John Nachbar about that.
“I came and presented a certain idea (for a scaled-back two to four concerts) that I thought would work. It suddenly got changed.”
Right now there is no Plan A, much less B.
Holding a currently empty satchel, Mr. Mandell indicated in the meeting he could pull the eight-week series together for as little as $10,000, down from $75,000 ¬¬– with a caveat, if certain decisionmakers and certain workers are agreeable.
Mr. Mandell seems to be reasonably sure of having $7500 to start, from the city. “With that amount,” said the owner of Boulevard Music, “we could do at least four shows.”
He has started planning for the Thursday nights that are draped across July and August. “I already have talked to one sponsor and I have talked to a couple of performers,” he said.
(To be continued)
