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Home My WebLink About2A, Celebrating Arden Hills City Festival Follow-Up 'It ,- RZEN HILLS Request for Council Action 2A Prepared By: Michelle Olson, Parks and Work Session Date: November 26, 2012 Recreation Manager Celebrating Arden Hills City Festival Follow-Up Budgeted Amount: Actual Amount: Funding Source: n/a n/a n/a Discussion Topic: Information provided for Council review. Staff is looking for direction on the future of the annual fall festival, Celebrating Arden Hills, in order to proceed with 2013 plans. Supporting Documents: 1. Memorandum dated November 26, 2012, from Michelle Olson, Parks and Recreation Manager. It ,-A EN HILLS MEMORANDUM DATE: November 26, 2012 TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Patrick Klaers, City Administrator FROM: Michelle Olson, Parks and Recreation Manager SUBJECT: Celebrating Arden Hills City Festival Follow Up Background At the October 15, 2012 City Council Work Session, staff presented a recap of the 2012 Celebrating Arden Hills Event with a budget summary. At that time, staff asked for direction for the 2013 event. The City Council consensus at that meeting was for staff to research other event options to assist in deciding the future of the annual fall festival. Based on those discussions, below are options for Council to consider. Inflatable Movie in the park: Offering a large screen movie at a City park has the following costs: • Licensing: Licenses run anywhere from $400-$600 PER EVENT, depending on the particular movie and estimated attendance. For public performances that are outdoors, it is required to carry a single event license for the particular movie showing. This license gives the right to show the movie to the public and to advertise the title. Facility license fees are only available for indoor movies. • Movie Equipment: The City could choose to purchase movie equipment or rent per performance. Depending on the size of the screen and quality of the equipment, purchase prices range from $8,000-$12,000. The equipment would need to be stored. The drawback to owning the equipment would be that it would take multiple years to make up the cost difference of owning the equipment versus rental and by that time, the equipment would likely need to be upgraded. Renting the equipment can be done through multiple vendors. Staff researched options and found that Mosquito Productions was the most reasonable. They provide set up, sound, monitoring of the movie and take down. This would allow the City to manage the movie event with minimal staff. Shoreview utilizes this company with success. The movie equipment for an audience of up to 350 (12' x 7' screen size) would be $595.00. The movie equipment for an audience of up to 1,000 (15' x 26' screen size) would be $1,295. Staff called and talked with a few cities to see who offers movies and the type of equipment they use. Staff heard from Elk River, Inver Grove Heights, Mounds View,New Brighton and Shoreview. • Elk River - Offer 3-4 outdoor movies each summer in their downtown park. They purchased the movie equipment with a business donation. Average 200 people per movie. • Inver Grove Heights - Offer 2 outdoor movies each summer in various parks (rotate). They had the movie screen donated and they own their own sound system. Average 150-200 people per movie. • Mounds View- Does not offer outdoor movies. • New Brighton - Does not offer outdoor movies. • Roseville—No response. • Shoreview- Show 2 outdoor movies and 3 dive in movies in their pool area. Average between 300-350 people per movie. Concert in the Park: Offering a concert in the park comes with the following costs: The City would be limited in the type of concert we offer. The City does not have a sound system or stage. Therefore, staff would recommend offering bands that provide their own sound system and who are willing to operate without an official stage. There are many bands that can do that. A few examples: Children's bands such as Teddy Bear Band and Splatter sisters; Shoreview Northern Lights Variety Band, the Resistors and many more. The average cost for these types of bands ranges from $600-$1,000 for a one to two hour performance. Staff would ask audience members to bring their own blanket and/or chairs. If the City wanted to provide chairs, staff would need to rent, deliver, set up and take down. Fireworks: Council expressed concern regarding the debris that fell onto a resident's property following the fireworks at this year's event. Fireworks are traditionally shot off from the top of Tony Schmidt Regional Park. Staff spoke with the firework vendor, Pyrotechnic Display Inc. about how this can be avoided. They indicated that the debris that travels the longest distance is from the larger caliber fireworks (5 inch), which are shot the highest and are the largest. The debris that travels that distance is the paper casing and is not the burning components of the fireworks. The debris does not pose a public safety concern. There is no full proof way to avoid debris or predict where it will fall. The fireworks company does the best they can to aim the fireworks appropriately, based on the wind. Options to consider (Please note that there are no options, minus eliminating fireworks that will guarantee that debris will not fall on private property): • Continue to have the fireworks shot off from the top of Tony Schmidt Regional Park with the same size display. The audience viewing area is within 600 feet, providing a nice display. 2 • Downsize the caliber size of some of the fireworks. This can be done by reducing the amount of money spent on the display or increasing the smaller caliber size fireworks to replace the larger caliber fireworks. The smaller caliber fireworks (4 inch) do not travel as far and are not as large. • Work with Northwestern College to inquire about having fireworks shot off from their island. Northwestern College was approached in the past with this request and was not in favor of the display on their campus. Staff contacted Northwestern College to discuss this option and they are currently considering the request. Their biggest concern is having fireworks on a Saturday night when they have weddings on campus. They indicated they would get back to the City with an answer by the end of November. The safety zone that would be needed would not affect any of the Tony Schmidt park area or residents. The best viewing area would be along the shore, the beach or on the lake. The audience viewing area would be quite a bit farther away (2,700 feet) than the current location at Tony Schmidt. See attached aerials. • The City could invest in building barges that allow the fireworks to be shot off from the lake. The fireworks company indicates that they would need a floating dock area of approximately 1,000-1,200 feet. In addition,they would need a boat to fire the display remote. The floating dock anchors would need to be set at the bottom of the lake to secure the platform. Someone (fireworks company does not provide this service) would need to secure the barges to the anchors before the show and remove them when complete. The City would need to find a way to store these barges throughout the year. In addition, the safety zone (350 feet) would restrict boat traffic from the time the explosives were on site (Usually 6-8 hours before the event). • Eliminate fireworks. Discussion Cummings Park has the facilities to handle concerts and movies in the park. One idea could be to hold a series of 2-3 movies/concerts throughout the summer in the park and have an end of the season EITHER movie night or concert at Tony Schmidt Regional Park with a fireworks display to cap the evening. In order to offer that at Tony Schmidt Regional Park, it would add just over $500 to the cost of the event for the park permit. Staffing would be minimal for the Cummings Park events and the finale night at Tony Schmidt would take a few more Public Works staff for set up, take down and managing the safety zone. Fireworks: $7,500 Concert/Movie series (2 movies/2 concerts): $5,000 Park Permit for finale night: $500 Approximate cost of series with finale fireworks night: $13,000 Approximate cost of series with NO fireworks: $5,000 Advertising could be handled with press releases, flyers to Recreation participants and email blasts of current participants. Sponsorships could be challenging for these types of events versus an annual event. 3 Requested Action Staff provided this information for Council review. Staff is looking for direction on the future of the annual fall festival, Celebrating Arden Hills in order to proceed with 2013 plans. 4 Mi LO gill N se 3 � ' Z a ca cD � . - a 0 M > d Z L 4.0 i:� E E O a o T! 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