Detroit Music Fest Official Statement and how to help

[djshiva]

official statement first, and then numbers for detroit city officials. drive them nuts! pass this on to everyone you know who cares about techno!
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Ladies and Gentleman;

I know many of you want to know what?s going on with the festival for 2006. I cannot tell you for sure, but I have been told that the City of Detroit is in negotiation right now and are only considering companies that can pay for the festival expenses out right. Which I believe is a wise decision. This festival needs financial stability. Unfortunately with our greatest efforts, we could not achieve what was necessary to continue to produce the festival in 2006. Here are some of the facts why, questions and answers:

Q: How many people attended the festival this year?
A: We sold 41,000 tickets this year. That translates to 37,000 1 day tickets and 4,000 Multi day tickets.

Q: Are the numbers down from previous years?
A: Yes, but just slightly. Comparing beer revenues from 2004 to 2005 suggests we really only had approximately 50,000 people in 2004. This does represent a small decline.

Q: So was the festival successful? It sounds like you a lot less people than in the past.
A: Considering the planning window we had put this thing together, we think the festival was incredibly successful. In addition, our numbers this year, and the fact that Hart Plaza capacity is less than previously thought suggest that our earlier festivals did not have 1,000,000 people in attendance as previously reported.

Q: Did charging for the festival have a big impact?
A: We surveyed festival goers and they told us that they thought ticket prices were extremely reasonable. The smaller than expected ticket sales were caused partly by inaccurate counts from previous festivals and partly from our own overly optimistic goals for this year?s festival. Finally, the biggest factor in lower ticket totals was our inability promote ,because we were only approved for the permit 9 days before the event. This made advance ticket sales and fundraising nearly impossible, so we couldn?t do follow through on our advance marketing program. The other sign that our issue was promotion was the fact that in previous years there were a much larger number of out of town guests. To be successful, this festival needs to be promoted starting in November.

Q: How will you pay the invoices of the vendors? Many say they haven?t been paid.
A: Yes, there are several vendors that MusicLogical still owes money. My intention was to bring a partner with some financial stability and resources in to partner up with MusicLogical and relieve the debts from the 2005 Fuse-In festival, but at this point we have not been able to achieve that.

Q: Are you saying you lost money?
A: Yes, because of lack of promotion time on the festival, the festival sold less tickets generated less revenue than we would have hoped. The costs were tight and we had a very good handle on the operational aspects of this event. This was not about our operation of the event ? it was about not having enough time to properly market the event and draw the crowds that still want to hear our music. I believe people would be surprised at how tightly this festival was run and how organized the entire effort really was. If we had 10,000 more foreign visitors, not only would we have broken even, but the city of Detroit would have received that economic spillover as well.

Q: Can the festival have financial success?
A: Yes, absolutely. If it is run as well as we ran it, and if it was started 6 months earlier (assuming the weather was positive) it would absolutely make money, and be able to generate cash that the City could use to help rebuild Hart Plaza for other festivals.

This is too great a festival to keep down. If the city would allow enough time to promote it by awarding the festival permit months in advance instead of days in advance, this festival could continue to bring music and dollars downtown for years to come. As an ambassador of our music (Techno) and our city (Detroit), I will continue to do whatever I can to spread the word throughout the world.

Yours Truly

Kevin Saunderson
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*sigh*

I just can't imagine why Detroit is in so much financial trouble. The city government moves at a snail's pace and doesn't seem to understand that TIME is needed to really boost the attendance at this world class event.

well, i wish i would have moved on this earlier (i have been swamped this year), but here ya go. spread these around. give the numbers to your friends, to your friends overseas. remind the city of detroit why people around the world know the name detroit: because of the music.

be articulate. let them know that even tens of thousands of people in their city is good for detroit. let them know that not giving the permits for this festival will mean a loss for hotels, restaurants, venues, even convenience stores, that normally infuses (no pun intended) their economy come memorial day.

if the city is no longer giving money TO the festival, then they have nothing to lose except the festival itself.

do the math detroit! festival in detroit 2006!


OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

Please contact Mayor Kilpatrick at:

City of Detroit
Executive Office
Coleman A. Young Municipal Center
2 Woodward Ave., Ste. 1126
Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 224-3400
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Recreation Dept
General Number: (313) 224-1100
General Fax: (313) 224-1734

ADMINISTRATION
Charles Beckham, Director
Lee Stephenson, Deputy Director
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and here's the city council website for good measure...
http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/legislative/citycouncil/default.htm

[SlavikSvensk]

I just can't imagine why Detroit is in so much financial trouble.

you mean the festival or the city? the city is, and has been for decades, completely, utterly f**ked, financially, economically, socially, politically.

[g]

beat me to it

can't imagine? have you seen the trash piled up on the city streets lately? as much as i want the fest to happen, as a detroit native i can safely say it's about the least important thing the city needs to do right now. revenue, yes, good. but even a wildly successful & lucrative festival would only be a tiny drop in the bucket.

i'm almost tempted to say don't write the city. it's a waste of time and if there were any attention devoted to it by councilpeople it would be time taken away from more important activities. ..not that that are really doing anything valuable with their time apparently.

- that's not said with a defeatist attitude. really. :) i think the city needs the fest in a lot of important ways and if i could pay for the whole thing myself i would. but don't be surprised when it doesn't happen. there'll need to be a major sponsor or there will be no fest.

[djshiva]

uhhh...that statement was serious sarcasm, by the way. i am well aware that the city of detroit has had serious problems for years, not the least of which is due to corrupt city government and an auto industry determined to get rid of every last well-paid autoworker it can afford to.

and i am not so idealistic as to think that calling the mayor is gonna save the fest *snaps* like that. but at the very least, it might give them a clue what they are losing by continuing to hamstring anyone who attempts to keep the fest going by putting them off until the last minute, tied up in red tape and govt bureaucracy.

i'm not even saying i think anyone who has had control of the fest for the last few years had any ****ing CLUE about how to pull it off. but it certainly didn't help to not even get permits until two weeks before the fest last year. that was just lame.

so fuggit. i'm gonna call the mayor and remind of him that my dollars will not go into the city of detroit unless he does something to facilitate the festival.

[S/E]

The city has been in all kinds of trouble for some time. I read an article recently that said it was nearly bankrupt and would be put into a sort of receivership so that the private sector could take care of every essential function that the government is normally responsible for. This is undoubtedly a large part of the reason for this uncertainty about the festival even occurring.

It would be sad to see the gathering go however.

[djshiva]

*sigh*

All bets are off this year...

Here are some articles on it.

Detroit News

Detroit techno fest's future is cloudy -- again

As producer Kevin Saunderson pulls out, the electronic community waits for city to turn switch on or off.

Adam Graham / The Detroit News


Detroit's problem-plagued techno music festival seems to have hit another speed bump on its way to what would be its seventh Memorial Day takeover of Hart Plaza.

On Friday, Detroit techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson, producer of last year's FUSE-in: Detroit's Electronic Movement, said he would not return to produce this year's event.

"I am out of the equation," Saunderson said on the phone from a tour stop in Frankfurt, Germany.

The move leaves the festival -- which has been in financial disarray for years -- without a producer and its future, yet again, up in the air.

City officials were not available for comment Friday.

Since its launch in 2000, the event -- which symbolized and recognized Detroit as the birthplace of techno music -- has changed hands three times. Carol Marvin and Pop Culture Media produced the first three Detroit Electronic Music Festivals, while Saunderson's childhood friend and fellow techno pioneer Derrick May produced the festival in 2003 and 2004 under the name Movement.

The 2005 event marked the first time the festival -- or any Hart Plaza event -- charged admission in an attempt to stem the red ink and break even. But the festival again lost money and Saunderson estimates he owes a sum of $250,000 -- $65,000 to the city of Detroit, the rest to vendors who haven't been paid for their services. He hopes to be able to pay back the money within five years.

But charging admission -- $10 per day or $25 for the weekend -- did provide the first accurate count of festival attendance. FUSE-in sold 41,000 tickets, an eye-opening contrast from the festival's early years where crowds were estimated at more than 1 million.

FUSE-in lost money last year because there was not enough time to promote it, says Saunderson. FUSE-in's lineup -- a strong bill that included Slum Village, Mos Def, Juan Atkins and Richie Hawtin -- was announced just three weeks before the event, in early May.

Ideally, Saunderson says, he needed an additional six months to promote the event, in part to give overseas visitors, of which the festival has attracted a healthy number over the years, time to make travel plans.

Saunderson says if he were to do it again he would eliminate some of the music stages and book less talent. Last year's festival featured 120 artists on four stages, many of whom donated their time to play the event.

Saunderson says he took the reins of the festival last year because he feared if he didn't the festival would have been canceled. "I guess I gambled and I lost," he says. "And maybe not. Maybe in the end, the festival goes on and maybe I can be involved somehow down the line in the future."

Saunderson, who says he hasn't had any direct conversations with the city about this year's festival, says he'd happily come on as a consultant and believes the festival is still viable and can make money given the proper direction from a production company with the time and resources to invest in the festival.

"I'm sure it will get there. Whether it's with me or without me, it will get there," Saunderson says.

Submerge Records president Ade Mainor, director of last year's FUSE-in fest, says he expects the city to make a decision about the fate of the festival in the next 30 days.

"I don't think the city or the electronic community wants to see this thing go away," Mainor says. "It's just one of those things where it's always last minute."

If the festival were to take some time off, Mainor says he doesn't necessarily think that would be a bad thing.

"From a business point of view, it would be nice to take a year off and regroup, or maybe do it later this year, later in the summer, and really take the time do it right," he says.

Movement producer Derrick May says a Memorial Day without the techno fest would be "unfortunate," but it would give the city "a chance to sit back, look at opportunities to make it better, and help make it a long-term event. It doesn't mean it's over -- it's not over until it's over. There's still an opportunity to do it, to re-brand it, to go out and talk to people and resell it as part of the rebirth of Detroit, which is more of a stillborn child at the moment."

In a separate statement released Friday, Saunderson said he's "been told" the city of Detroit is "in negotiation right now" with companies who will be able to pay for festival expenses outright.

You can reach Adam Graham at (313) 222-2284 or agraham@detnews.com.

One from the Detroit Free Press

Detroit techno fest may get new producers

February 18, 2006

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BY BRIAN McCOLLUM

FREE PRESS POP MUSIC WRITER

Musician Kevin Saunderson is out -- and a group of full-time event professionals might be in -- as Detroit's annual techno festival takes the latest twist in its perpetual backstage saga.

Saunderson, a techno DJ and one of the genre's pioneers, said Friday he remains about $250,000 in debt from last year's Fuse-In festival, his first as lead producer of the 6-year-old Memorial Day weekend event at Hart Plaza. Saunderson, speaking from a tour stop in Frankfurt, Germany, said metro Detroit vendors and concert-staging firms are among those owed money.

Meanwhile, a small group of local event-production veterans has alerted the City of Detroit to its potential interest in producing the event this May, sources with the city and the group told the Free Press.

A representative of the group asked that its members not be named because the process is in its early stages. No formal discussions have taken place, said Lucius Vassar, chief administrative officer for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Live Nation, the area's top concert promoter, is unlikely to be involved in the event, said Detroit staffers with the California company, formerly Clear Channel Entertainment.

The struggles Saunderson encountered last year aren't new to the event, which has been dogged by financial and logistical problems. Despite large crowds and a high international profile, the event lost money under both its prior incarnations as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival and Movement.

Unlike those free events, Saunderson got permission from the city to charge a $10 daily admission or $25 for the three days. About 41,000
tickets were sold. "We had debt after the festival that we couldn't shake, or couldn't resolve in quick enough manner, that would have allowed me to do it again," Saunderson said.

Contact BRIAN McCOLLUM at 313-223-4450 or mccollum@freepress.com.