As the July 29-30 inaugural Spark!Fishers Festival nears, Mayor Scott Fadness says the city will be providing cash support to the first year event.
In a podcast interview recorded Monday morning, Mayor Fadness says in the first year of the Spark!Fishers Festival, he expects the cash contribution by the city to be similar to the amount provided in the past to the Fishers Freedom Festival.
“Keep in mind that this is our first year,” Fadness said. “There’s some heavy lifting to get it up and running, but even the fact that they are holding it to one day brings down our in-kind costs, because if you look back in the day when we had to have police, fire and public works out there for two full days, that really started racking-up on overtime bills for the work that we did.”
Fishers Parks and Recreation Director Tony Elliot told me during the same podcast that he expects those involved with the festival will learn a lot the first year and become more efficient in subsequent years.
“I’ve served on the sponsor committee and we’ve learned a lot,” said Elliot.
City Councilman John Weingardt stated last week that he expects the Spark!Fishers Festival to have “very minimal” cash support from the city, but did say he had not seen the numbers.
In 2017, the Fishers Freedom Festival received $45,000 in cash support from the city and $45,000 in in-kind support. In-kind support is from the city departments, such as police, fire and public works.
Elliot described a very different Geist “Blast On The Bridge” this year. The July 4th celebration will no longer close-off the Geist bridge at roughly 4 p.m. as in past years, instead concentrating on the local restaurants in that area.
The bridge will close at 8 p.m. so people can gather to watch the fireworks display at 10 p.m.
Finally, when asking about the IKEA-sponsored Maternity Lounge at the festival, Mayor Fadness mentioned his wife Aunna may take advantage of that. Scott & Aunna Fadness are expecting their second child in late August, and, according to the mayor, their second child will be a boy.
You can listen to the podcast cited above at this link.