City Concerned About Proposed Music Festival

OCEAN CITY – The town is becoming inpatient with a proposed three-day country music festival scheduled for next summer as the talent and ticket sales have not been announced.
An update from Founder’s Entertainment 2014 Music Festival was scheduled to be brought before the Mayor and City Council on Monday but Tom Russell of Founder’s Entertainment was absent and re-scheduled for the Mayor and City Council legislative session on Dec. 2.
The festival has been on a roller coaster ride since it was first proposed in October of 2011 when it was presented to be held on June 2-3, 2012 on the beach in downtown Ocean City. It was to consist of four stages and aimed to target top talent.
In March of 2012, Russell returned to the council asking for a date postponement to June1-2, 2013 after having trouble scheduling targeted talent. Then, in November 2012, Russell requested the event become a three-day series of live country music on the beach with a targeted date of summer of 2014.
Russell presented the festival as a two-stage music festival on the beach set for May 31-June 2, 2014. The event is estimated to bring in 20,000-25,000 attendees per day. Along with the music, the festival will include art, craft vendors, sponsor activations and food and beverage concessions that include beer and wine. Targeted talent for the festival includes nationally recognized country acts that typically play arenas and other large-scale venues.
Founders Entertainment is estimating a $20 million economic impact to Ocean City. Russell proposed the town will receive 7.5 percent of all food and beverage concessions from the promoter’s share of the revenue after taxes and expenses, and $1 per every three-day admission ticket sold, 66 cents per every two-day admission ticket sold, and 33 cents per every one-day admission ticket sold.
April was the last time Russell came before the council requesting the town consider renting the Inlet parking lot during the event. The town would receive the average earned income over the past five years for use of those parking spaces, which is about $40,500.
At that time, Mayor Rick Meehan recognized the financial agreement was not what Founders Entertainment had initially proposed, which was Ocean City would receive a $1 per two-day ticket sold, and the council voted to have Founders work with City Manager David Recor to nail down specifics of the financial agreement before approval.
With Russell absent this week, town officials expressed their concerns.
“I have no updates from him regarding talent or pre-production information,” Private Events Coordinator Lisa Mitchell said.
Meehan said June’s special event calendar is jammed and the town is continuing to work its way around the music festival in having other events to avoid problems.
“One of the reasons they delayed the event is so they would have plenty of time to promote the event well in advance so that they could sell tickets, and that time is now,” the mayor said. “They should have known nine months in advance who [talent] they were going to be having because that is the time table that he had given us. I support the concept and certainly hope it moves forward but we need to get the information sooner then later, so it can be on the calendar and we don’t back out of other events waiting for that to occur.”
Councilman Dennis Dare pointed out the Farm Bureau Live at Virginia Beach is hosting Journey and Steve Miller Band on June 21 and tickets are now on sale.
“Time is of the essence and I would hope that the gentleman is at the next meeting, so he could tell us where he is,” Dare said.