Musikfest Day 2 - A Rant

I don't understand the local newspaper here. The Morning Call is one of the sponsor for Musikfest but then on the first full day of the festival it runs an article that does nothing short of shooting it in the foot. Although I just recently moved here into the Lehigh Valley, over the past few years I have often heard a vein of thought that questions how exactly the organization that runs Musikfest (and Chriskindlemarkt) uses the money that these festivals bring in. All this article does is to add to this negativity, and right at the beginning of the festival, all it accomplishes is impact the bottom lines of everyone involved.

Kathy Lauer-Williams of the Morning Call wrote "Many food vendors are raising their prices because Musikfest has increased the percentage of the take that must be paid to the festival — it's now 30 percent of gross proceeds, up from 26 percent last year.". And that most food vendors have raised their prices "to cover the 15 percent increase charged by Musikfest."

My first beef is with what I think is deceiving math. Yes, 30%-26% is 4%, and 4% is 15% of 26%, so therefore yes, the festival has increased their take by 15%, I agree. I just think that to the festivalgoer, this is confusing, they increased their commission by 4%, plain and simple, regardless of what they took in 2004, they take 4% more this year. Looking at it as a 15% increase may be to help justify the 50 cent increase (or more) in just about everything you eat or drink, or it may be a way of making Banana Factory (the show producer) look greedy and ultimately bad at handling their money.

The article goes on to quote a food vendor who usually grosses "around $50,000" at the event. Now a quick look at the web site shows about 64 food vendors scattered over the festival so at 50k each that is a take of 3.2 million in food, and 30% (960,000) goes to the show producer. Add in the fact that many acts and areas are sponsored (Handwerksplatz is sponsored by the Las Vegas Sands for 50k, plus we all pay $650 for our booth space on top of that) and the money starts to seem like it is endlessly pouring in. But regardless "the cost of everything else — from insurance to fuel — has gone up and last year Musikfest finished slightly in the red.". What? In the red? 25 years of this festival and they can't balance their budget? They need a better project manager.

So by complaint is that this article, that came out on the first full day, sent people in with a negative mind set. The fact that they'll be spending more, the question of where exactly is their money going… these keep them spending less, less in food, less in crafts, less on other things, possibly insuring that 2005 will be another year in the red. With sponsors like The Morning Call, who needs enemies?