VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Accountability, inclusivity and impartiality are among the guiding principals a task force is recommending the City of Virginia Beach adopt when deciding whether or not to financially support future festivals.
In an hour-long presentation to City Council Tuesday, Mike Mauch, the chair of a 16-member “Festival Task Force,” underscored the importance in having a standardized policy that all festival organizers must participate in to ensure the process is as fair as can be.
In recent years, City Council members have raised concerns as more and more festivals, mainly at taking place at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, have asked for financial or in-kind support. Mainly those concerns revolved around if the taxpayers were receiving a return on their investment.
The task force supports a policy that would measure events by specific metrics.
Mauch said he is proud that all members unanimously agreed on what those metrics should be, even if he left feeling City Council wasn’t all on board.
“There are still a lot of questions but I feel a little success in that we were able to clear a little bit up and create a little more confusion,” Mauch said.
Mauch, who owns the Harvest restaurant at the Oceanfront, explained that the task force found each festival should be judged by what its chief goal is.
Is it to attract tourists and put people in hotel rooms? Or is it just about bringing the community together?
The task force decided an event must generate a minimum of 1,000 verifiable hotel room nights to be considered a Tourism Event, and preferably bring in people from greater than 50-miles beyond the city’s boundaries.
An example of Tourism Event events would be the Something in the Water Festival.
The task force recommended City Council continue to make determinations for what level to fund those festivals by taking into account financial return on investment, then the benefit to the city’s image and community benefit.
A Community Event would be defined by events organized and attended predominately by people from the community or nearby region.
Mauch said neighborhood carnivals would be an example of a community event.
When it comes to funding Community Events, the task force recommends starting up a Community Events Committee to consider the communities’ return on investment in terms of vibrancy, inclusion, belonging and connectedness, as well as the city’s overall image. The financial return would also be considered.
It’s advised that Community Event money should not come from the Tourism Investment Fund (TIP), which is made up of lodging, meals and admissions taxes, but rather the general fund, which is made up mostly or real estate taxes.
It was also recommended that community events not be held at the Oceanfront during resort season.
Councilmen Michael Berlucchi and Chris Taylor took issue with this part of the proposal.
Restaurants produced $801 million outside of the Oceanfront districts and contributed $10.6 million to TIP in 2023, according to Taylor.
“These districts outside the Oceanfront almost two to one are producing more [food and beverage] than the Oceanfront,” Taylor said. “It’s very difficult to read that if someone wanted to do a community event, we’d have to go to the manager and find money out of the general fund.”
Berlucchi agreed the process doesn’t seem fair while he thanked the committee, stating that more work is needed.
City Council is under no obligation to follow the task forces report. However Mauch is hopeful it will give the city the tools to make the decisions that need to be made.
“In reality, not everybody needs to get funded,” Mauch said. “You know not every event is worthy of funding. We have to see what the return on investment. Whether it’s the community investment. I mean the community return on investment or a financial return of investment. I think that’s the biggest emphasis is. You know not everybody needs to get funded.”