THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603080294
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
There is no question that the city wants to continue the 40-year-old Boardwalk Art Show sponsored each June by the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts.
There is little, if any, disagreement on expanding the venerable four-day show to a major 10-day, event, renaming it the Boardwalk International Arts Festival and adding music and dance performances to the traditional visual arts display and sale.
What is unresolved is how much additional money the city needs to find for this year's upgraded event.
City Council members dealt with the issue in their informal session Tuesday and came up with a lot more questions than answers.
In the end, they asked city staff and representatives of the arts community to go back to the drawing board and develop a clearer picture of how much money is needed and where it can be found.
Some of the confusion came from the difference between the festival's operating funds and promotional budgets.
The Boardwalk event needs $100,000 in operational funds from the city to meet its projected $315,000 budget. While the city has provided $83,000 toward the goal, $39,000 of that ($15,000 in cash and $24,000 in in-kind services) is to be used for promotional purposes.
That leaves organizers $56,000 short of their operational goal.
Contributing to the shortfall was a commitment of $4,000 rather than the projected $25,000 from Beach Events and a lack of any funding from the city's Arts and Humanities Commission.
``Last year Beach Events gave us $18,000. We had hoped for an increase this year,'' said arts center president Helen Snow. ``Instead they decreased it.''
In addition to the $4,000 channeled through Beach Events, the council has appropriated $40,000 from the Tourism Growth and Investment Fund (TGIF), which is supported by hotel, restaurant and amusement taxes.
The funding picture also lacks clarity on who is responsible for funding what, especially when it comes to events that overlap the arts and and tourism areas.
The Department of Convention and Visitor Development, which is contributing $15,000 in promotional funding to the festival, is tasked with promoting Virginia Beach as a destination for tourists.
Beach Events, which has the responsibility for increasing the amount of entertainment that is available to locals and tourists at the Oceanfront, decreased its contribution to the festival in order to concentrate on new entertainment.
Among the additional demands on Beach Events' $800,000 budget are the opening of a second stage along the Boardwalk, the responsibility for nightly entertainment and out-of-season activities such as the holiday light show.
The Arts and Humanities Commission, with a total budget of about $200,000, also has other commitments. Last year the commission gave a one-time donation of $25,000, but that was an exception to the panel's longtime policy.
``We've never made it a practice to fund the Boardwalk Art Show,'' said Flo McDaniel, the group's chair. Nevertheless, she appeared at the council session in support of the request for additional money for this year's festival. ``It's just that we see our mission as funding arts groups and classes as opposed to festivals,'' she explained.
Although council members are generally supportive of the move toward making the festival a major one, the funding intricacies left most shaking their heads.
``With all those groups (Resort Area Advisory Commission, TGIF, Beach Events) operating out there, I think we need to figure out who's in charge of what,'' said Beach Borough Councilman Linwood Branch III, a strong supporter of the festival concept.
``The art show is our No. 1 event,'' Branch said following the meeting. ``It's one of the top 100 (art shows) in the country right now and it wants to be one of the top 10. I think we should support that effort.''
Last year's show, the largest arts event in the state, brought in an estimated $200,000 in tax revenue on sales of $2 million by exhibitors.
In addition, the festival brings in a significant amount of private donations.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH BOARDWALK ART SHOW by CNB