WaL - July 29th, 2005
scott.l...@gmail.com
limited to my new horse, the return of the NHL & the apparent greed of
the Minnesota Wild, the shuffling of the Today Show depth chart with
the saucy Campbell Brown stepping into Katie's chair while she's out,
with the icy Ann Curry staying put at the update desk, a new Watson's
commercial, and an honest report from a Lieutenant Corporal on the KQ
Morning Show in which he said the media coverage in Iraq "doesn't tell
the truth, they report the sensational because that's what get
attentions" and then went on to tell stories of the Iraqi people
thanking them and the Iraqi children running up to hug them. Nope I'm
not going to get to any of that even though they're worthy subjects
(with the possible exception of the Watson's girl). Instead I've got
to focus on the current laughing stock of the state, my beloved New
Ulm.
On Tuesday it was announced that Heritagefest is done. The one
positive thing that I took from the announcement is that Bruce Fenske
and the boys at Journal can take solace in the fact that many many
people read the Journal's online edition.
Let's go over some quick history on H-Fest. Heritagefest has been the
premier summer festival in New Ulm for 31 years. It was a great excuse
to unwind and celebrate our German roots. According to the
Star-Tribune's article on Wednesday H-Fest had its best year in 2000.
It then lost money in 2001, 2002 & 2003. Last year it was profitable,
with a lot of corporate help. This year they again lost money.
For the powers that be, the solution to any money problems was handled
in two different ways, they would raise the prices of everything, and
publicly whine for more support. In the end it cost over $10 at the
door just to get into Fest.
I don't deny that Fest needed work, but I don't think it needed to be
shut down. If you dog gets worms, you don't put him down, you fix the
problem and that's the real frustrating part of this. Any person with
any marketing sense at all can point to a number of things that
could've been done to improve the Fest.
Here's a quick list:
1. Greatly discounted entry. Part of me says make it free, no one
likes a cover charge. One of the largest effects of the $11 admission
charge was to keep the locals away. Something tells me the B&L with no
cover charge turned a profit over the two weekends of Fest. If you
feel the need for an admission charge then it should be capped at a $5
max.
2. Go back to one weekend. The move to two weekends was done to make
even more money, but it seems that the time for that system has passed.
I don't have access to the actual expenses, but I can't envision to
many great economies of scale by going to two weekends. Go back to one
four-day weekend, and offer free entry on Thursday night to get the
party started. That idea also would've made it much easier for me to
schedule Bocce.
3. No more tickets for food & beer. In the words of Randy Moss,
"straight cash homey". The move was made to tickets because of
employee theft, lately they've had a problem of beer tent workers
giving the beer away. Here's how you fix that problem. Good inventory
control. If you have four people working a beer tent, and they go
through fifteen kegs, and have enough in the till to justify three kegs
gone, then you have a problem. This is much easier than it sounds.
4. Bring back the pitcher. It's more convenient for the user and gives
the little rugrats something to do. I still remember me & Trav chasing
down empty pitchers for the deposit.
5. One tent, one stage. Use the arena only for the gift shop and a
place for the seniors to cool down. Watching the Concords in the arena
is as good as ice skating in the big tent.
6. Real sponsorship. Like it or not the world now turns due to
corporate sponsorship. In 2004 they claimed that they had more
sponsorship, but I'll be damned if you could see it. Sponsorship means
that you have signage saying so. It always pretty, but it works. What
do I care if it's the 3M Heritagefest presented by Kraft Foods.
7. Make Bob Beussman the festmeister. What's a fest without a
festmeister. Richie Wilfarht was beloved, but the man is gone. It's
time to move on.
I could go on with this list for a really long time, but I'll let you
do that. Go to the blog at www.lumpworld.com and post your suggestions
in the comments for this post.
The real change that needed to occur was for a complete change of
leadership. The current executive director was Kathleen Backer. She
assumed the position in 2001, which perhaps coincidentally was when the
problems started. I don't know enough to link the two absolutely, but
what I've seen the last couple of years has not impressed me. The
president Hugh Nierengarten & the board also need to be held
responsible for the demise of Fest. I'm not sure who all the board
members are, but I know at least two that I consider to be friends, who
have children on this mailing list. I respect the hell out of them,
believe them to be great people, but I still think that the Fest needed
all new blood.
It may be too late to save Fest which is a shame. Personally I would
like to see Oktoberfest elevated in stature and to move into the
fairgrounds and migrate to a more H-Fest like atmosphere.
I'm heading home this weekend for the Reinhart golf tournament (a few
spots still left, e-mail me if you want to take part in a great
tournament) and I'm really curious to see if there's been any letters
to the editor on the subject. John McKinzie has written a very good
homage to the fest, take a gander at http://www.johnmckinzie.com/.
Here's what I want you to do. H-Fest still has a blog active that
takes comments. Lord knows you people are deathly afraid of leaving
comments but I'd like to see all of you post a comment ripping the
decision to close fest before trying to fix it. The blog is at
http://heritagefest.blogspot.com/. Oaks & I already have left our two
cents; I'd love for us to collectively leave them at least a quarter's
worth of disgust.
I could write for hours on this since it pisses me off, but I'm gonna
call it quits now.
Have a great day,
Lumpy