Will Artsfest return to Harrisburg next year?
That possibility came up at tonight’s city council meeting, and council members seemed to be on board with the mayor’s proposal for the city to run the 54-year-old festival.
Mayor Eric Papenfuse officially brought forth the proposal tonight for the city to helm the popular Memorial Day weekend event.
The festival had been run by Jump Street, a nonprofit arts group that announced in July it is dissolving.
If the mayor’s proposal is approved at the city’s next legislative session Oct. 8, the city can enter professional negotiations with Melissa Snyder to serve as event coordinator as the city runs Artsfest of Greater Harrisburg next year.
Snyder told city council that she ran Artsfest for Jump Street for the last six years. While Snyder said it runs without a hitch now, Papenfuse said it still will be a new undertaking for the city.
“We’re estimating Artsfest will cost about $100,000 to produce, and we believe we can recoup that $100,000 in terms of fees and sponsorships, but there is some risk in this first year in that we haven’t done it before and we are essentially fronting money,” Papenfuse told council. “We did this successfully with the Fire and Ice Festival. We made it work and our team has done an amazing job.”
And he said in all of the festivals the city runs, it always recoups its costs.
If the resolution is approved, Snyder, whose stipend would not exceed $10,000, would be brought on to provide her expertise, but all contracts will be made through the city, he said.
Snyder said Artsfest is a big economic driver for the city. Since Jump Street folded, restaurant owners and other business have come to her saying, “We have to make it work,” she said.
It has grown substantially in its five decades, now expanding through much of the riverfront.
But if there is going to be an Artsfest, the proposal has to be approved quickly. In the arts community, Harrisburg’s festival is among the first of the season, and those contracts have to be approved and on the books very soon to make it work.
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