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| Music festival in question after council cuts funding |
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The Magnolia City Council put a stop to giving money from the city’s hotel/motel tax fund to the organization that puts on the Magnolia Music Festival at a recent meeting.
After a failed motion to allocate $35,000 from hotel/motel tax funds to the Magnolia Community Foundation (MCF), the future of the event could be in jeopardy. According to the MCF’s funding application form, the $35,000 would cover 80 percent of the total costs of the festival. The form also says the funds will be used “For general up front operating expenses to include but not limited to advertising, entertainer deposits.” The MCF, a non-profit 501 c3 organization, was created last June after the inaugural Magnolia Music Festival to take over as the main entity overseeing the event. Previously, the City of Magnolia handled the planning and funding of the festival. “I have some concerns,” said Council member Todd Kana. “I do believe in budgeting.” He added that the city should learn from the mistakes of the past year. Councilman John Bramlett and Kana agreed that the festival should be held at Unity Park, rather than a few miles north of the city at Ray’s Entertainment, where it is scheduled to be held May 14-15. “I did not expect it to leave the city limits or Montgomery County,” said Kana. Council member Patsy Williams said she agreed that having the festival in the city limits would be ideal, but that it “may be too late” if the contracts were already signed. Music festival chairman Mike Karm said that two of the four headliners have signed contracts and the other two are in a “holding pattern” to see what will happen with the money, although they do have verbal contracts with the two. Karm said the main reason for changing the location was a weather issue. “That was the main reason for moving it out that way,” he said. “They have a very nice pavilion and rain or shine, we can have a show.” Last year’s festival was held on the grounds of the Magnolia Ridge development. Organizers are expecting between 5,000 and 7,000 people at this year’s event, which would feature headliners Ray Price, the Bellamy Brothers, Zona Jones and Cory Morrow. The fund allocation issue will be revisited at a special city council meeting Feb. 22. To see an agenda, visit www.cityofmagnolia.com. Mayor Jimmy Thornton previously stated that last year’s festival saw nearly 6,000 visitors and made more than $50,000. Comments (2)
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 22 February 2010 09:46 ) |
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~Or is it the fact that Waller County can sell alcohol? And with the sale of beer more people will come which increases your ticket sales for people coming? Of course Waller gets the excise tax as well.