Downtown Springfield has been facing some difficult hurdles lately. In addition to the devastating fire which damaged several businesses on Adams Street in June, the Jaycees' annual Fourth of July Capital City Celebration, with its popular downtown fireworks display, didn't happen for the second year in a row (the derecho nixed it in 2023). AbeFest, a downtown festival held in July to highlight both local and national music acts, has also canceled for a second time. The Legacy of Giving Music Festival reported low turnout last month and may or may not be returning in the future. More recently, it was announced that the popular Old Capitol Blues & BBQ festival won't be providing Springfieldians with its usual combination of sweet grooves and tasty ribs next month.
Of course, things aren't all doom and gloom – the Levitt AMP concert series, first held on the downtown Y block in 2019, only seems to draw bigger crowds with each passing year and Downhome Music Fest is set for this weekend (see p.15). Still, a nervous, uneasy feeling seems to persist among event organizers for a variety of reasons, many of them financial.
Upon receiving the usual bill for security and other services from the city of Springfield following this year's St. Patrick's Day parade, longtime parade organizer Barry Friedman, who also owns the downtown bar The Alamo, was caught off guard.
"The costs for the police and stuff had gone up considerably, and it wasn't something we knew about," Friedman, who also served as this year's grand marshal, said. "It's usually been about the same cost every year, and this year it was a lot higher." The parade is held for charity and, in his role as grand marshal, Friedman had chosen Rutledge Youth Foundation as this year's recipient. "We're going to give them a check later this month but it is going to be significantly lower than it would have been because of the costs that we incurred," he said.That unexpected extra financial burden also played a part in Friedman's decision to cancel this year's Old Capitol Blues & BBQ festival, which would have been celebrating its 20-year anniversary in 2024. Friedman acquired the rights to Blues & BBQ in 2016, after Downtown Springfield, Inc. announced the organization was no longer going to put on the event.
"Preparing for the festival, you budget for a certain amount – and considering what happened with the parade, we didn't have it in the budget," Friedman explained. "It's not all because of the city – all costs went up. But when you have to budget a year out, you can't afford to be surprised with anything, and that's what we were afraid of."
"The police department does get paid overtime for these events," said Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher when Illinois Times inquired about possible reasons for the additional costs. "When you see police officers surrounding the parade, they're all on overtime. It has always been the city's policy to bill (event organizers) for that overtime cost."
"In the last few years, we have been so short on manpower that we haven't been able to fill all the spots on those parade routes," said Sgt. Jeff Royer of the Springfield Police Department. "With fewer officers working, you're going to see lower costs in those years." Royer credits the current city administration and SPD Chief of Police Ken Scarlette for providing more available officers this year, which in turn resulted in more overtime being charged to organizers.
In an interview with IT, Buscher acknowledged that for future charity events such as the St. Patrick's Day parade, she would be willing to consider negotiating ahead of the time for a lower number of officers on duty so as to not impact the eventual charity recipients as much. "We'd still have to decide what is sufficient for public safety. Because all the parade-goers do anticipate it to be safe when they attend," she said.
Tim Smith helped DSI put on the Amaranth Apple Festival downtown in 2017 and 2018 but low attendance and weather issues caused that festival to bite the dust. Still, Smith caught the festival bug and created AbeFest, which he organized for a few years, with one summer off for COVID. AbeFest did not happen in 2023 and was also canceled this summer.
"We were not an established festival with a good crowd base," Smith said. "I was stuck at 500-800 people per night but I was booking bands that needed more than that. I've heard a lot of other promoters say 'Springfield likes free tickets and cheap beer' – and that doesn't pay for this stuff."
Another issue for AbeFest did involve fees from the city. "I don't agree with the city charging these festivals that are trying to promote people coming downtown – but I don't believe it's making or breaking any festivals – it's more like salt in the wound," Smith said.
In a prepared statement regarding the organization's reasons for canceling the Capital City Celebration earlier this month, the Springfield Jaycees cited financial hardships, including difficulty obtaining sponsors along with an exceedingly short window in which crowds actually gathered to buy food and enjoy music and fireworks.
"One or two hours at full sales capacity doesn't even begin to create funding to continue a full weekend festival," according to the statement, which also claimed that the Jaycees "asked multiple times for the city to help us by either pointing us toward businesses that they knew had remaining donation funds or to simply cover the cost of the fireworks while we continued to put on the festival. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response in time to safely put on this year's festivals."
Buscher acknowledged that while the city has provided funding for the downtown Fourth of July celebration in the past, that was not the case this year. According to Buscher, the city of Springfield gave the Jaycees a check for $40,000 two years ago to help them restart their fireworks program, but it was not intended to be an ongoing commitment.
"Apparently that money was spent in 2022, and then in 2023 they canceled because of the derecho and then had no money (for this year)," she said. "We just didn't have money budgeted to fund that for them again. And I don't think they were offering to pay for police protection for the citizens that would come to the fireworks. I would recommend if the Jaycees want to have a Fourth of July fireworks display downtown, they need to have a business plan in effect for how they're going to raise the money and pay for things."
Both the Jaycees' statement and the mayor's office made a point of acknowledging that even without the Capital City Celebration, there were plenty of other options for Springfield citizens to see fireworks this Independence Day weekend. In addition, a city-financed fireworks display is set for the last concert in this year's Levitt AMP series featuring Radio Free Honduras and Jose Gobbo Trio. "We've done that a couple years in a row," said Buscher. "Every year [Levitt AMP] gets bigger and bigger, it feels like."
"The ongoing Levitt AMP concert series has achieved its primary goal of uniting the community through music in our vibrant downtown," wrote Downtown Springfield Inc. executive director Carlos Ortega in an email. "While it has successfully brought together over 1,000 attendees at times, it has not significantly altered commercial patterns, according to feedback from local small businesses. People attending these free concerts are primarily focused on enjoying the music, rather than engaging in commercial activities."
He noted that the high attendance numbers seem to address one of the most frequently repeated complaints about downtown. "The series has highlighted that downtown parking is adequate."
Buscher said she would be glad to offer help to any organizers wanting to put together events downtown in the future. "I told the Old Capitol Art Fair folks we would invite them in to have a meeting to pre-plan for their event and they were like, 'Oh my God, we would love that, we didn't know that was an option!'" she said.
"I think some of the organizers that have been doing it for so long, (the idea of a meeting like that) kind of falls to the side because it's mostly lined up from previous times," said Crystal Trent, operations manager for Springfield Public Works. "But things change over the years."
"I believe that the current administration is supportive of downtown events, despite the recent cancellations and challenges," wrote Ortega. "The increasing costs associated with insurance, trash removal and utility hookups can indeed be prohibitive for event organizers. However, the administration remains open to listening and working with event organizers to address these issues."
As for feelings about the state of things in downtown Springfield overall, there seems to be a variety of opinions. "This is my 30th year at the Alamo," said Barry Friedman. "There are people trying hard, but this is as slow and as bad as I've seen. Foot traffic – there's none.""Downtown Springfield remains quite walkable from our center at the Old State Capitol," wrote Ortega. "I believe a softer approach to downtown development would be supportive. As an example: currently, traffic on Fifth and Sixth streets, as well as Washington and Jefferson streets, moves quickly because they are state highways, creating a perception of difficulty in navigating the area. The density of stores is also an issue, with streets like Monroe, Fifth, Sixth, Adams and Washington feeling sparsely populated and challenging to navigate."
"I understand why people might have kind of a knee-jerk, negative reaction to how things have been going downtown," said Jay Wheeler, organizer of Downhome Music Fest, who is also a manager at the downtown bar Celtic Mist. "But I think for these kind of events, it's worth taking the gamble to get people down here and remind them what a fun area downtown Springfield is."