Council approves funding for festival

By Jewels Phraner

Published March 18, 2008

The Roots N’ Blues N’ BBQ Festival will be rockin’ the Columbia streets again this fall.

The City Council approved a bill appropriating $100,000 to Thumper Productions, the company in charge of the festival, under the provision that the festival continued to charge nothing for admission.

The money will come from the hotel/motel tax tourism fund and will be only used for the 2008 festival.

Last fall, the city also set aside $10,000 in an effort to make sure the festival returned.

“I think we’re all in agreement that last year’s event was terrific,” Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala said.

The two-day festival, taking place last September, brought 65,000 people to the streets of downtown Columbia for concerts and barbecue food. It generated $5 million to $6 million in revenue for the city, Fifth Ward Councilwoman Laura Nauser said at the meeting.

Last year, Boone County National Bank was the main sponsor of the event.

City Manager Bill Watkins said the bank will still be a sponsor in this year’s festival, but he didn’t anticipate that they would contribute the same amount.

Skala asked Thumper Productions co-founder Terry Woodruff whether the company intended to make the event free again.

“It has come up in the past, in some of the community discussion and earlier today amongst ourselves, as to whether or not the intention this year is this will be a no-fee event other than a closed event,” Skala said.

Woodruff said though the company has discussed the idea of VIP packages with priority parking and meet-and-greets with various artists, at this time they have planned to keep it a free event.

To ensure free admission, the council voted unanimously to add a no-fee admission as a provision for Thumper Productions to get the $100,000 from the city.

Another amendment keeping the $100,000 on “open books” was also passed “so the public will have some confidence that it will be used for entertainment,” Watkins said.