GOVERNMENT
Young MC works the crowd up at the Wild West Music Fest at Copper Sky Park.
Worth it? City unsure if it made or lost money on music festival
BY JUSTIN GRIFFIN
B
As final details of the festival trickle in, InMaricopa has uncovered some facts through Freedom of Information Act requests that bring some of the inner workings of the festival into focus. The numbers There’s no such thing as a free lunch — or birthday party for that matter. The city of Maricopa agreed to pay SLE $200,000 in the initial contract signed July 10. The first half of that money was supposed to be paid up front and the second half was to be paid within 10 days after the event. The initial amount wasn’t enough, apparently, as about a month later, Maricopa agreed to pay SLE an additional $150,000, bringing the city’s total buy-in to $350,000. In an addendum to the original contract signed Aug. 7, the funds were to be paid upon the confirmation of the artist lineup for the festival. The city, however, may recover some of its upfront costs. The contract stated profits were to be split 50-50 between the city and SLE. How those numbers will work out won’t be available until SLE provides the city with the final accounting statements from the event. The contract listed multiple possible revenue streams, including ticket sales, vendor fees,
Y MANY ACCOUNTS, THE WILD WEST MUSIC FEST was a finely tuned operation. The event, held Oct. 13-15 to celebrate the city’s 20th anniversary, ran on time, traffic issues were nil and police made no arrests.
Official attendance figures are unavailable, but city officials estimated attendance between 17,000 and 20,000 over the course of the three-day event. Despite surpassing a goal of 10,000, the city admittedly may not know if it made or lost money on the event until next year. Apart from the operational success of the event itself, the question of whether the festival made any money remains up in the air as the city awaits a final account of the attendance figures, expenses and revenues from event producer Steve Levine Entertainment. According to the contract between the promoter and the city, SLE has 90 business days from the end of the festival until it is obligated to provide those details, along with the accounting of the event and the details of any profits. To the casual observer, that may sound like three months — but business days exclude weekends and holidays, which means SLE isn’t contractually obligated to supply the information until mid-February.
InMaricopa.com | December 2023
8
Powered by FlippingBook