Can crowdfunding save the Three Rivers Festival?

Last week the Three Rivers Festival launched a crowdfunding campaign in hopes of easing their financial woes and keeping the festival afloat. The annual event draws in hundreds of thousands of people to “celebrate the spirit of Fort Wayne” with entertainment, various vendors, and carnival rides and games. 

They aim to raise a total of $450,000, according to the campaign on the GiveSendGo website. $300,000 of that is dedicated to paying off debt owed from the 2024 event and the additional $150,000 is needed to begin planning for the 2025 festival.

Sara Roach, president of the Three Rivers Festival Board and a certified public accountant, says the possible success or failure of the crowdfunding campaign will help the board determine if the community is invested in seeing the festival continue. 

“We are going to use the crowdfunding campaign as kind of a litmus test as to just how vested the community is in seeing the success,” she says. “Over and over again we hear how people of Fort Wayne love the festival, but when it comes down to it, are you willing to financially support the festival?”

Recent donations from supports of the Three Rivers FestivalAt the time of this story’s publication, Three Rivers Festival’s crowdfunding campaign was sitting at $965 from a total of 11 donations.

The financial trouble is not a complete surprise. In late fall last year, it was revealed by local media outlets that the festival's future was up in the air as its financial status was labeled “dire”. 

At the time Roach and three others sought out help, writing letters to city officials, that according to WTTF, explained the festival’s funding was a big concern. They asked city officials to forgive over $38,000 in debt which was owed to the Fort Wayne Police for security services and to the Fort Wayne Parks Department for park damage from that year’s event. Roach and her team also asked for the city to refund an additional $30,000 which was paid by the festival to the city for facility rental.

Deputy Mayor Karl Bandemer met with board members and followed up with Roach via letters, which according to the Journal Gazette, said potential help from the city would require seeing “a feasible business plan” for the festival. 

The Three Rivers Festival board has made no announcement concerning a business plan, but in late November, the board eliminated the festival’s only two paid positions as a means of reducing their costs. Shortly after, Roach told the Journal Gazette that in order to survive, the festival would need to increase revenue and reduce expenses.

According to their crowdfunding webpage, they have already transitioned to a fully volunteer-run model, transitioned to a remote administrative model, decreased spending on marketing, realigned their entertainment expense to break even, and decreased spending on professional expenses like electricians and promoters.

So how does one of the largest festivals in Fort Wayne end up in a financial pinch like this?

The festival is organized by a board of individuals who either volunteer or are appointed to their positions. For them, the festival is not about profit. Roach says they receive no compensation for their work. Their goal is to recoup the amount of money they put into the festival each year.

“The festival is funded through vendor fees, through corporate sponsorships, and then we also get some revenues from the Downtown Midway and Junk Food Alley,” she explains. “For the most part, that's how it's all done.”

At least in recent history, it’s rare the festival has a positive net income. According to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, between the years of 2009 and 2023, the festival had a negative net income in 10 out of those 15 years.

Roach, who has been on the board for five years and is in her second year as president, says she can only speak to the years she has been on the board, but understands that in the long-running history of the festival, it has never been a moneymaker nor is it about making money. 

With only a nine-day season to make revenue, the financial success of the festival is a tricky balancing act for its organizers.

“We have a nine-day business cycle, nine days to make our money, to make the budget, to make it work and if we have rain on one or two or a few of those days, our revenue costs are gone and our expenses don't go down,” Roach says.

As they plan, they weigh the cost of new attractions and entertainment options with the potential of attracting more festival-goers. Recently, they’ve also been faced with a changing landscape around Headwaters Park, like the construction of the Lofts at Headwaters Park.

When it comes to the finances of the 2024 event, Roach cites multiple changes that caused the festival’s expenses and revenue to become more unbalanced, eventually leading to their reaching out to the city and seeking support via crowdfunding. 

“As you know, the city is developing a lot of the downtown area, which is great for the city and I love to see the development,” she says. “However, that doesn't leave any room for us to grow and us to function.”

The festival has previously been in different spots around the city, something the board considered when faced with this development predicament, but Roach says because their team is so small, logistically, it would be difficult to effectively run the festival if it were spread out to different areas and the changes would be confusing to visitors.

She explains the development of lots around Headwaters Park left them searching for a new home for the popular Junk Food Alley. The space that was previously used had the necessary hookups for vendors, like electrical, but was no longer an option. After searching for solutions for six months, they decided to move the Midway to Lawton Park and place Junk Food Alley north of the entertainment pavilion.

“But there is no power service there and we knew that at the time, so we planned,” Roach says.“We had to hire an electrician. We had to rent generators. We paid for diesel. Costs are outrageous. It cost us $150,000 to make that move and we knew it would be that.”

Compounding that issue, Roach also says there were at least three businesses that had planned to provide five-figure sponsorships, who lowered their funding to $500 in early June, citing rising costs as the reason. 

To help offset the increased cost of relocating Junk Food Alley and the decrease in sponsorships, the board decided to increase the price of pay-to-attend events and bring in bigger acts in hopes of driving more traffic to the festival. 

“We didn’t have the attendance last year at entertainment that we expected,” she says. “We spent more on entertainment, hoping it would drive traffic and it didn’t.”

Roach circles back to the construction to explain a decrease in festival attendance. She says the board hears from patrons that construction and limited parking options are keeping them away from the event. 

“When we have 100,000 people come to watch our parade, that's a lot of people, and that's a lot of parking domains,” she says. “The downtown area is not real conducive to accommodating hundreds of thousands of people in a small space like that.”

In addition to those two factors, Roach says rising costs are affecting everyone involved in the festival.

“I do know that as costs rise, we're really put behind an eight ball,” she says. “And it's not just our costs are rising -– it's our patrons' costs are rising. They don't have as much disposable income to spend all around.”

These factors culminated in financial challenges that left the board in its current financial predicament. Unable to pay vendors for their work at the 2024 festival, and unsure of how they’d be able to plan for the 2025 festival, they reached out to the city and then turned to the public.

“Three Rivers Festival, a beloved Fort Wayne tradition for over 50 years, is at a turning point,” reads a post from the festival’s Facebook page announcing the campaign. “Financial challenges have placed the festival at risk, but with the support of the community, there is a clear path forward.”

But what is the ‘clear path forward’?

To put it bluntly – the path forward isn’t clear yet. The Three Rivers Festival Board has still not provided a business plan. 

“We are still working on it,” Roach explains. “Because we owe money to vendors from last year, we're in a real tenuous position, where if we promise to do a festival in 2025, we still owe money for 2024 to our vendors. So trying to reconcile that has been our hang-up -– trying to make sure that we can assure our vendors that they'll get paid. Just hang on with us.”

The board has made efforts to reduce its current expenses and Roach shared they were considering new sponsorships and grant funding.

While the campaign website says, “The Three Rivers Festival must raise $300,000 by February 10, 2025, imminently to avoid bankruptcy.” Roach told Input Fort Wayne that the deadline was a bit more arbitrary than that.

“The February 10 deadline is really more for us having a final plan in place,” she says. “We have to put a deadline on the website…if we don’t raise the money by the time we’re done, it just means we have to evaluate -– what progress did we make? What does that tell us? What is the community telling us? Is this something that we should continue to pursue?”

The Three Rivers Festival Board will meet on February 10 and Roach says they hope to make a decision about the 2025 festival then. She says the “litmus test” of crowdfunding will help determine how they move forward, as it gives the community a chance to show their support for the festival.

“Crowdfunding is not a sustainable funding model and we recognize that,” she says. “But we do recognize that we have a lot of community members that want to be heard and they want to help and this is their opportunity to help. If we can raise enough funding to continue, then we will look at our other revenue streams.”

The board is determined to find a way to succeed, which according to Roach means, “Everything is on the table. We’re looking at all options.”

“They're a lot of crowd favorites like the parade and Children's Fest and Art in the Park that are longstanding favorites, so we know those are real critical to the success,” Roach says. “But what is it that will bring in some of the younger people? We have a lot of old-timers in our volunteer groups, and they love the festival and they love what it used to be. We want to see the younger generation come in as well and love what's going on at the festival.”

This could mean changing the size, length, or location of the festival, but those changes are all dependent on the community support and feedback received by the board. 

“If all we are all about is nostalgia, we can put that in history and in the memory books and then just call it done,” Roach adds. “But we don't want to do that. We want to continue. We want to see this thrive and more than just survive. We would like to see it grow, but we are in a corner now.”

Roach says they’re committed to listening to the community, even if it’s criticism, which they’ve received a fair amount of since launching the crowdfunding campaign.

Facebook and Reddit users discussing the festival question why the festival should carry on if it cannot financially support itself. Although it’s hard to hear, Roach says it's a valid critique and one the board is listening to.

“We support ourselves based on community involvement, so if the community is not willing to support us– that to me says they don't care or they aren’t necessarily that vested in seeing the festival continue,” she says. “So we're looking at all these comments and taking it to heart.”

For now, they plan to monitor public support and feedback, pursue sponsorships, and develop a plan that could allow them to pursue grant funding should they decide to continue the festival.
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Read more articles by Brittany Lantz.

Brittany Lantz is Input Fort Wayne's Managing Editor. Previously she served as Assistant Editor and participated in the College Input Program. She also volunteers for Northeast Indiana Public Radio.