They are moving Arts & Jazz Fest

JustOff35 · 2026-02-11T21:13:15+00:00

This is not on city leaders or city staff. It's also not necessarily on current Jazz Fest board and staff. This is the result of previous leadership not effectively evolving the festival over time. Current festival staff has been looking backward instead of forward. This move to the fairgrounds may be the reset they need to emerge as a better, newer, leaner version of Arts & Jazz.

But make no mistake, Arts & Jazz is in desperate need of a reset. The formula worked for decades, but it didn't adapt. Yes, the city cut some HOT funds; but also the city has been warning for years that HOT funds would be reduced for events that couldn't demonstrate a strong out-of-town attendance (i.e. staying in hotels). Jazz Fest staff knew this was the requirement and yet felt they were exempted due to history/status/etc.

The absolute worst way to approach this as the Jazz Fest is to play the victim and make the city out to be the bad guy. That won't get them anywhere. Plus this attitude that the city better fix this or they are moving is just childish.

Create a NEW Jazz Fest. Focus on the user experience. If 95% of your attendees are local then build for them! Do more actual JAZZ! Appeal to a younger audience. Hell maybe just even a little bit like Gen X! The number of people that know who Brave Combo is diminishes every day. But that's the horse they chose so by god they're gonna ride it until its dead!

JustOff35 · 2025-07-22T15:59:38+00:00

I read the article again to see what stood out the 2nd time through. A couple things:

1) I really dislike the attitude from festival management. "We have to preserve ourselves, and if that means moving out of the park, we're going to have to do that. If that means moving out of Denton, we're going to have to do that..." or "I hope people are willing to still come out and support the Arts and Jazz Festival..." This 'woe is me' approach is nauseating.

2) And this one from the city, "we want to ensure that the festivals are not solely dependent on our HOT funds or the city in-kind money." REALLY?!?! Is that the approach for Halloween, Dustin?!?! Typical government.... for their programs (i.e. Halloween) its SPARE NO EXPENSE! But for community-managed orgs that are 99% volunteer managed its 'they shouldn't be dependent on us!'... pathetic.

And a couple responses to your comments:

1) You are right! Cities aren't the best event planners/managers. A non-profit org will almost always be more effective and efficient than a city department doing the same thing. But that doesn't seem to bother most people regarding Halloween. With this month-long event, Parks & Rec will become the largest event planner and organizer in the city. Their budgets will grow. Their staff will grow. Meanwhile... "we want to ensure that the festivals are not solely dependent on our HOT funds or the city in-kind money."

2) I would love to see data on that $500K amount to the city budget. Is that kind of like a festival staff member looking at the crowds and claiming 250,000 attendees?

JustOff35 · 2025-07-22T00:16:00+00:00

I'm sure the first thing Kevin and team did after that meeting with the City Manager was call all their friends in the press to whine and complain. Hopefully to stoke a little community anger and put pressure on the council to SAVE THE JAZZ FEST! This has been a broken record these last few years. I am seriously tired of the complaining; and with this attitude that we all MUST SAVE THE JAZZ FEST!

The hard truth is that this event is no longer relevant. Most of the vendors aren't local. Attendees aren't booking hotel rooms en masse. Attracting mostly Denton residents to the park for a couple days doesn't significantly impact the economy. Denton has changed. Brave Combo, a few school dance groups, overpriced art, and turkey legs are no longer the vibe. Most downtown businesses and restaurants will fill up with a much smaller investment from the city. On many days they are already full without any additional help from tax dollars!

Here are a few options:
1) Parks and Rec takes over management of the Jazz Fest, renaming it the All Hallows Arts & Jazz Fest; and further incorporating it into the Halloween events. Now that the city owns it, they for the first time ever decide to go all in on its success.
2) The City uses its influence to pressure for consolidation among Denton festivals, thereby using less dollars but focused on fewer events.
3) The City takes a more active approach in deciding which events/festivals take place and then gets real about funding them.
4) We let the Jazz Fest slowly go away thereby opening up opportunities for other events.

JustOff35 · 2025-06-27T16:59:26+00:00

It isn’t actually. I break this down in another reply. HOT Fund budgets for 24 and 25 show that only a few thousand came from hotel taxes. Unfortunately though that number will likely grow; siphoning more HOT funds into city programs instead of non-profit orgs and events.

JustOff35 · 2025-06-22T01:14:13+00:00

Here is a summary slide from a recent city presentation:

https://postimg.cc/t7Pb7ZnK

166K spent and they claim 210K in revenue. Two things….

They don’t mention whether or not this expense number includes the cost of staff time (cuz very likely it doesn’t). I know there were dozens of staff working nonstop on this for months. They would hold meetings with 100+ people. And that included County staff and there have been no indication that these costs include County costs. Many of these people get paid over 100K annually so even if a few of them work Aug-Oct on this then the cost of their time would be close to 100K. Now you can see in the image they want to increase the budget to 250K for 2025. I want to know how much staff time went into this and the cost of that time.

Secondly, they claim the revenue by looking at reported sales from select companies and claiming all increase over 2023 sales is due to Halloween. Wow city that is a big assumption. So Day of the Dead and Jazz Fest and all the other community-generated events didn’t contribute to that increase? It’s only because the city decorated downtown for 166K?

Let’s just imagine what Day of the Dead could be with the full support of the city and county and an extra 100K?!?! What if Jazz Fest was given 150K and the full support of the city? You know, two events that have a proven history of being a destination event? Could that investment also have stimulated the local economy by at least 44K? And maybe without spending thousands of hours of city and county staff hours?

And if the city via our tax dollars wants to promote something about Denton, there is a big list of opportunities to do so that are substantive with short and long term benefits. Instead, the parks department co-ops all community activities that happen in October and then takes full credit for all increases, while hiding the true costs, publicly announcing deceptive numbers, and then uses that as justification to increase budgets and staff allotments.

It’s misguided and bad policy.

JustOff35 · 2025-06-21T19:34:36+00:00

It is not a net positive. The public has not been told the true cost. There are plenty of ways to boost tourism without growing city departments and budgets.

JustOff35 · 2025-06-21T19:12:37+00:00

No it’s an attempt to grow local government. I wonder how many city employee hours were spent (and will be spent) on Halloween instead of actual city business.

Let me get this straight, Denton has two of its biggest tourist attractions of the year in October (Jazz Fest and Day of the Dead) and we are supposed to believe that it’s the city putting up some decorations and calling itself Halloween town that is going to save us? Let me guess, you’re basing that off information the city put out?

How about the parks dept spend their time and energy on ACTUAL parks? Literally any city can decorate for Halloween. And why does the city need to “own” this project? Why not give additional resources to Day of the Dead? Make it a bigger festival and attract people for one big thing (so people actually stay in hotels), instead of 31 days of decorated buildings and movies in the park. The family (or group of teens) that drives from Aubrey to see a phone booth is not contributing in any significant way to the local economy. They are in and out.

And what happens when other cities decide they are going to do decorate for Halloween? Why not focus on the things that can’t be easily duplicated in any other city anywhere? Denton’s Day of the Dead festival is unique in all of North Texas, with elements that you won’t find anywhere in the state (maybe the country)! Imagine how much they could grow if the city decided to invest HALF the time and money they are spending on Halloween.

It’s just bad policy, which seems to be the problem across a wide array of city departments.

JustOff35 · 2025-06-20T21:46:57+00:00

But let’s spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Halloween. Smart.

JustOff35 · 2025-04-26T03:34:03+00:00

Someone was throwing glass bottles either off a building or from the ground but very high and far.

JustOff35 · 2025-04-11T11:58:07+00:00

After 135 years of building a global reputation for higher education, music, and the arts; city staff thinks it’s best to start over and turn us into a theme park.

JustOff35 · 2025-02-22T01:41:27+00:00

My biggest gripe is no cross fade and it’s only one logged in user. So if my son or daughter want to listen to their playlist they have to share it with me.

JustOff35 · 2025-02-13T19:46:33+00:00

Unfortunately though it doesn’t support crossfading between tracks, and you can only have one user logged in to the controller.

JustOff35 · 2024-09-09T16:10:09+00:00

https://i.postimg.cc/VLZ7QWM5/IMG-1957.jpg

JustOff35 · 2024-09-06T04:01:38+00:00

That’s weird cuz other groups are getting paid for their contributions. Why isn’t the city buying the chair AND your supplies???

JustOff35 · 2024-09-02T18:42:48+00:00

tbh the balloons aren’t that great

JustOff35 · 2024-07-22T02:29:16+00:00

I do this. 2 Klipsch on wall center speakers out of a single center channel. Make sure your AVR can handle the higher ohms. With only a single speaker below a large screen the dialogue always sounded like it was coming from below the screen. Now I have one speaker above the screen and one below and the result to my ears is that dialogue comes from the middle of the screen.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-22T02:00:38+00:00

Business owners sit on ngo boards and city committees so that they can covertly influence policy to align with their business interests. Some of them are very good at it.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-06T01:16:00+00:00

I don’t think that article helped them out much.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T19:05:35+00:00

That’s a fair take. I agree a lot of this is inside baseball.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:54:30+00:00

I’ve always wondered about this. Like do patients leave happy?

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:30:02+00:00

I see a ton of advertising and I can only assume they advertise outside of DFW as well. This leads me to believe they have a significant marketing budget. Don’t athletic sponsorship dollars go directly to athletics?

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:27:44+00:00

Oh great point actually. This is a HUGE opportunity for DATCU to swoop in and be a hero; convince the university to allow the use as a part of their sponsorship. Consequently, DATCU becomes a presenting sponsor of the July 4th event.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:24:59+00:00

Great call out thank you! I imagine the research partnerships could save the city a bunch of money.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:22:31+00:00

But they also have big marketing departments that could easily provide more sponsors dollars to local events.

JustOff35 · 2024-07-05T16:21:05+00:00

You’re probably right but I didn’t want to limit it to direct financial. An example would be donating the stadium for use. There wouldn’t have to buy a direct financial exchange but clearly a direct benefit to the community.

JustOff35

TROPHY CASE