Eureka Springs Festival Success Hinges on Early Bookings, Ads

For five years, city officials in Eureka Springs have been singing the blues because their festivals were operating in the red.

But they’re trying to change that trend this year.

Lynn Berry, executive director of the City Advertising and Promotion Commission, fired Pearl Brick and hired Sally Thackery in October as special events coordinator and manager of the 77-year-old City Auditorium.

In her new job, Thackery will oversee the May Festival of the Arts, Blues Festival in June, Bluegrass Festival in August, Big Time Festival in September and 58th annual Ozark Folk Festival in October.

The festivals bring tourists to Eureka Springs, which helps local businesses, but the city has been losing money organizing and promoting the events. For the past three years, the CAPC has lost anywhere from $3,000 to $50,000 per festival in any given year, with total loses doubling from $54,961 in 2004 to $110,942 in 2005. (Those numbers don’t include the Big Time Festival, which is new this year.)

At the same time, the flow of tourist dollars into Eureka Springs appears to have slowed down. The city’s 2 percent sales tax collections that go to pay for advertising and promotions have been down the last three years in a row, taking a 3.6 percent dip in 2005 to $1,035,940. That amount reflects $51.8 million that was spent in Eureka Springs last year at restaurants, lodging facilities, gift shops and “attractions” (see charts, p. 18).

“I don’t want it to be in the red,” Thackery said of the city’s festival budgets, “but our goal is to see that people are in town so our businesses flourish.”

Early Birds

Berry said Brick brought in top-shelf talent — including Ray Charles for his last public performance — but didn’t have the entertainers lined up early enough to properly advertise the events.

“I think the glitch we hit was that, six months to a year out, we did not have our festivals in place with the talent and all,” Berry said. “We were still operating under the steam of our original success at festivals.”

After four years on the job, Brick moved to California.

“It was an unpleasant departure,” Berry said. “But by Feb. 15, we had everything booked … It was Sally’s enthusiasm and her experience that we sought. That’s why we’re so far ahead of the game.”

By Feb. 15, the city had sold $15,000 worth of tickets for the Eureka Springs Blues Festival, which is about 15 percent of the total and way ahead of where sales were in previous years by that date. This year’s blues festival, featuring Taj Mahal, will be held June 1-3. More information is online at eurekaspringsbluesfestival .com.

Thackery said it may be difficult to make all city festivals profitable, but they need to be operated more efficiently from a fiscal standpoint than in the past.

Thackery has booked Dr. John and Little Feat for the Big Time Festival, and the Smothers Brothers and Arlo Guthrie for the Folk Festival. Her husband, guitarist Jimmy Thackery, is scheduled to play in the Blues Festival.

Because of Sally Thackery’s early bookings, Berry said she will be able to publish a 10-panel accordion brochure by early March to advertise all of Eureka’s festivals and performances for the year.

Thackery had a good track record. She ran the Blues Festival from 1991 through 2001, when it was more successful attracting crowds but didn’t always operate in the black, she said. Thackery wasn’t involved with the festival from 2002 through 2005, when it was operated by the CAPC and called Blues Eureka instead. She also isn’t involved in the city’s winter festival, A Dickens of a Christmas in Eureka Springs.

The Turnaround

The CAPC took over operation of four Eureka Springs festivals in 2000 and 2001 as independent promoters began having various problems with the events.

Berry said it’s not unusual for a city to lose money on festivals, but she thinks in the case of Eureka Springs, that can be changed.

“There’s not a municipal auditorium in the United States that doesn’t run negative numbers,” she said.

Eureka Springs’ City Auditorium recently underwent a $400,000 renovation. City leaders are particularly proud of the facility, which opened in September 1929 with a concert by John Phillip Sousa and his orchestra, one month before the stock market crashed.

A 2 percent city sales tax funds the CAPC, which has a budget of about $1 million per year. Out of that amount, $160,000 goes to pay salaries for the four CAPC employees and $112,000 pays for three full-time and two part-time employees at the City Auditorium. Thackery, who has a two-year contract, is paid $50,000 per year from the CAPC as a contracted employee, not a staffer.

Berry started working as the marketing director for the CAPC in 2000 and became executive director last year.

New Marketing

Thackery and Berry also have some new promotional ideas.

“We’re going to go after a group we’ve never targeted before — birders,” Thackery said.

Inspired by the sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker in east Arkansas, Eureka’s May Festival of the Arts will have a bird theme. About 130 different events, including several gallery shows, will be held during the month. Paintings of birds by the late Mary Sims and a bird viewing blind at nearby Lake Leatherwood will be highlights of the festival.

The city is also going after an “Important Birding Area” designation from the Audubon Society.

Eureka Springs will also host a spring art sculpture competition. Sculptures will be placed in seven of the city’s springs. The winner of the competition will receive $5,000, thanks to Marty and Elise Roenigk, owners of the Crescent and Basin Park hotels. The city will get to keep the winning sculpture.

Another new strategy many people will appreciate is lower prices. When Bill Cosby performed at the City Auditorium in 2003, tickets were $100 each.

This year, the most expensive tickets for single events are $45 each.

“It’s a conscious effort to get them to spend $100 over two or three shows,” Berry said.

A “package” for this year’s Blues Festival includes five shows for $130, or people can pay $40 if they only want to see Taj Mahal perform one concert.

This year, Friday night shows will start at 8:30 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. to give people an opportunity to eat in local restaurants before going to the concerts.