RiverFest won't be returning to Little Rock in May.
If it does come back in a later year, it may not be in the same form as before, organizers said Monday.
RiverFest Inc., the company that runs the downtown Little Rock music festival, said in a statement that it was taking this year off to "restructure, reorganize and reinvent" the event.
David Renfro, a spokesman for the company, said in an interview Monday that organizers want to scale RiverFest down from a three-day music event to something akin to a street festival. It's tentatively scheduled to return in May of 2020.
The budget for the 2019 festival was close to $1.5 million, with $800,000 set aside for music, $200,000 for stage production and property rental, and another $300,000 for advertisers, Renfro said. However, as organizers worked to secure bands, they realized the company couldn't raise the money necessary to make the event a success, Renfro said, noting that music labels were charging too much for bands that wouldn't draw enough attendees.
"I think the event was kind of geared toward drawing people in from six, seven different states," Renfro said. "And we want to try and build an event that's geared more toward the communities that are already in Little Rock and the surrounding areas."
Organizers hope to make the event more affordable and to place a greater emphasis on arts and food vendors, with live music provided by Arkansas musicians, according to Renfro.
RiverFest was a staple in central Arkansas for 40 years before coming to a halt in 2017. Memphis-based Universal Fairs resurrected the festival for 2018, but it didn't draw as many attendees as organizers initially predicted, according to the event's director.
"It was not what we expected," event director Jack Daniels said shortly after the 2018 festival.
Renfro agreed that bringing back RiverFest proved to be a challenge. He said the 90 days Universal Fairs had to plan the 2018 event "wasn't a lot of time" to book bands and get the word out about the revival. And he noted that organizing a festival is costly, with expenses that include park rental, parking and security.
"We took a pretty good beating in our first year," he said. "And I think we needed a little bit more time than just the following year to try and reinvent the event."
RiverFest took place at First Security Amphitheater in Riverfront Park, which the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau has managed for about a decade.
Gretchen Hall, the bureau's president and chief executive officer, said the organizers contacted her office a few weeks ago to say a 2019 event would not be taking place.
"We're hopeful that they'll return with something that will draw good crowds," Hall said. "They had a very short window to provide that event last year. Unfortunately, they fell short of their anticipated attendance number, and I'm sure that led to their decision as well."
Mark Lovell, chief executive officer of Universal Fairs, bought the festival's brand and its online presence in December 2017, about five months after the event's past board of directors voted to dissolve the nonprofit that ran it. Artists including Young Thug and Kip Moore were announced in April 2018 for the event at the end of May.
"We tried to piece together the best music festival we could with the time and availabilities we had in 2018. I think we did pretty good, considering," Renfro said Monday, explaining that many bands are often booked far in advance, particularly for that weekend in May.
Renfro said it was also a challenge to balance the park's rental fee with the costs of police and security.
"For us it's really difficult. It's expensive to do business in almost every city you go to, but most cities you go to you get support from the local community," he said.
Details about the organizers' agreement with the Convention and Visitors Bureau were not immediately available Monday.
Other officials who heard the news Monday said RiverFest had been good for the city, but that they looked forward to a restructured event.
"I think obviously RiverFest has deep roots in this community, but I'm optimistic that the organizers that now have the rights to the festival are going to err on the side of due diligence," said Gabe Holmstrom, executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership. "Without a doubt RiverFest is an event that Arkansans get excited about, and it's something that's great for our city."
Jay Chesshir, president and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, said he was sad to see that the event would not take place this year, but was hopeful that the organizers or another group would come up with something to bring people downtown. Events like RiverFest not only bring in money from out-of-town visitors, but also provide activities for local residents, he said.
"We certainly will do anything to be helpful," Chesshir said of the chamber assisting the Convention and Visitors Bureau with the event or one like it in the future.
Even with lower-than-expected turnout, some downtown business owners and partners said the event was still a boon.
Nick Roye, who manages Little Rock's Comfort Inn & Suites Presidential off Interstate 30, said the hotel and others downtown regularly saw a jump in guests the weekend of the event. Roye is also a member of the Little Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission, which oversees the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
"I imagine they're trying to get it right," he said. "It helps downtown hotels, and not having it, we wouldn't have that business."
He added that the traffic from RiverFest could be made up if the number of events downtown increases.
"The more events we have downtown, the better," he said.
Chris King, the owner of Stickyz Rock 'N' Roll Chicken Shack, said the restaurant had long seen RiverFest weekend as a focal point of the year, and 2018 was no different.
"For us, it's a challenge that we look forward to," he said.
He said he had a feeling that a 2019 event wasn't in the cards after seeing some posts on the event's Facebook page asking when a lineup would come out and questioning whether it was taking place. King, who is also a talent buyer for live music events, said he had previously reached out to the event's new organizers to ask if he could help them with booking, but never heard back.
Jeff Trine, owner of Damgoode Pies, said the news of this year's cancellation has a huge impact on his business, though the Arkansas-based company has experienced the hardships associated with the festival's decline for several years.
For Trine, this meant selling fewer pizzas.
"The uncertainty was doing more damage than the finality of the event being over," he said.
In spite of the cancellation, Trine said he expects another festival to pop up along the river within the next few years, whether it's another iteration of RiverFest or something entirely different.
"There's still lots of people that like to go down there, and it's a great place to have a big party," he said.
Metro on 03/26/2019