Jellyfish Festival MOU Gets Green Light From Commitee

OCEAN CITY- More details emerged this week for the inaugural Jellyfish Music Festival and associated homegrown, family-friendly events scheduled for next June after the Recreation and Parks Committee voted to forward a favorable recommendation to the Mayor and Council.

In April, the Mayor and Council approved a roughly $263,000 investment in the proposed Jellyfish Music Festival slated for June 2019. The festival will be a town-wide live music festival combined with action sports, family-oriented interactive entertainment and arts and culture. The Jellyfish Festival will utilize the town’s best assets including a state-of-the art stage on the beach downtown featuring big-time national acts along with other smaller concert venues and other activities on the beach and at the Ocean Bowl skatepark, for example.

The event’s producers along with Special Events Director Frank Miller, presented a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to the Recreation and Parks Committee on Tuesday. After carefully vetting the proposed MOU, the committee voted to forward a favorable recommendation to the Mayor and Council, who will likely get their first look at the planning document on Monday.

The event is being put together by a trio of producers with a long and storied reputation for putting together major special events in the resort and beyond. The team is spearheaded by Brad Hoffman of Live Wire Media and Events and Endless Summer Surf Shop owner and CEO Joe “Salty” Selthoffer. Perhaps the key addition to the impressive Jellyfish Festival production team is Brian Gilpin, whose Illusion Sound and Lighting company has produced major concert events featuring some of the top acts in the country and beyond with state-of-the-art digital concert boards, stages and sound systems with multi-venue capabilities.

‘It’s a music festival with the icing on the cake the extreme sports, the family-friendly interactive experience and the village,” said Hoffman. “The difference between this and the Dew Tour is that the Dew Tour was an extreme sports event with a little music and this is a big music festival with big-time bands. That’s the goal.”

Hoffman explained the main venues would be centered around the downtown area, but at night when the official venues go dark, the festival will continue at numerous restaurants and bars around the resort.

“What’s really nice about the concept is the beach venue is just one of many,” he said. “It’s designed to move people around town. It also features broad genres. We might have pop music on Friday and Christian music on the beach on Sunday.”

Some of the major events featuring top national bands will come with a cost, but for the most part, the other concerts, extreme sports and interactive family events will be free to the public.

“The main concerts at the big venue on the beach will be gated and we anticipate drawing 4,800 to 5,000 people to those,” he said. “We’ll issue a lanyard for the paid events and it will get you into the concerts and food and drink specials at the restaurants and bars where the concerts continue during the night. There will also be plenty of free entertainment on the beach and in the village and other activities for families.”

Some on the committee questioned if the town would have any input on the bands chosen and the appropriateness of their material. Miller explained his department and the tourism department would work closely with the promoters to ensure the family message is adhered to.

“We will have some oversight, but we’re not getting formal approval on every aspect of this,” he said. “They have to maintain the family-friendly image and we can watch and red-flag some things if we feel the need. We’re not going to micromanage their efforts.”

Councilman John Gehrig said event producers’ reputations preceded them in terms of putting together quality events, but still wanted some input on the family-oriented entertainment lineup.

“I am super confident because I know who is in this room,” he said. “If there were a couple of guys walking in off the street with this, I’d certainly want more oversight. At the same time, we have to have some input.”

Councilman Wayne Hartman pointed out with a projection for selling 15,000 to 20,000 lanyards for the paid events at $55 each, the promoters could stand to raise over $800,000 in the first year and questioned why they needed the town’s $263,000 in start-up money. Hoffman explained the projections were just that and there were many variables associated with the inaugural event.

“There are unknowns in the first year,” he said. “I say 15,000, but there is no way of knowing if that is accurate. In the first year, you build it and see what the results are. We want to build a great event in the first year that will last for years to come.”

Hoffman pointed out he and Selthoffer live and work in Ocean City and have a storied history in producing quality events.

“This is our town too,” he said. “We want to make you proud. All of our effort, our money and our time are devoted to making Ocean City proud.”

About The Author: Shawn Soper

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Shawn Soper has been with The Dispatch since 2000. He began as a staff writer covering various local government beats and general stories. His current positions include managing editor and sports editor. Growing up in Baltimore before moving to Ocean City full time three decades ago, Soper graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1981 and from Towson University in 1985 with degrees in mass communications with a journalism concentration and history.