Still no word on Riverfest

Still no word
on Riverfest

Everyone knows there’ll be an outdoor festival in Red Bank’s Marine Park on the first weekend in June, they just don’t know who will produce it yet.

As of The Hub’s press time on Tuesday, the mayor and council had not announced a much-anticipated decision on whether to approve the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce’s proposal to produce Riverfest, or a competing proposal put forth by the Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation.

A decision is likely to come by the time of the council’s next meeting on Feb. 5, Mayor Edward J. McKenna Jr. said following the Tuesday council meeting.

The matter of who will put on the festival, which has become New Jersey’s largest, free, outdoor music and food event, is down to the wire — both groups propose to stage it May 31-June 2.

Also, both groups have complained that the matter has dragged on for too long and is hampering efforts to organize the event and, more important, to attract the sponsorship dollars necessary to cover production costs.

It’s been a diplomatic challenge for Red Bank’s mayor, who was presented with a situation in which the parties that had jointly put on the event for a decade — albeit at odds much of the time — were vying for sole proprietorship.

The decision, expected to be announced shortly, is no small matter to the mayor and officials of the town, which experiences an influx of upwards of 200,000 people on Riverfest weekend. Maintaining the quality of the event and proper planning to handle not only the details but issues like security, traffic and crowds is of tantamount concern to the borough.

The debate over who would run the festival became public in November when the Hub reported that chamber President Linda Rose had announced the group’s intent to refocus the event by diversifying music offerings to include genres like country, rock and rap, and hired as event manager This Is It!, Hoboken.

Rose said the new format wouldn’t lessen the caliber of the festival.

"We’re not compromising the quality. I live here too," she said, adding that the chamber would be happy to continue producing the event. "We enjoy doing it and the community likes it," she noted.

The chamber’s proposal left the Jazz & Blues Foundation out of the equation. In addition to a desire for program diversity, Rose said the cost of the entertainment provided by the foundation was too high.

In response, Jazz & Blues Foundation President Nicholas Coppola said the foundation, which had produced all aspects of the music performances at Riverfest since its inception, has the experience and organizational ability to put on the entire festival itself.

Other Shore events produced by the group include the Long Branch Beachfest; Blues, Brews and Barbecue at Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson; Red Bank RiverCenter’s Street Life; and the Seafood Fest at Point Pleasant Beach.

Coppola took exception to Rose’s criticism of the musicians’ pay, noting that musicians actually agree to work for about half of the usual going rate for Riverfest appearances.

He said changing the jazz and blues format would be detrimental to the character of the festival, and the foundation decided to put its own proposal on the table. That proposal likely included adding events at other venues and a charitable component aimed at giving something back to the town.

Bringing in sponsorships, Coppola said, would be no problem for the foundation, which has ties to many music industry groups and corporations.

"Who wouldn’t sponsor the largest outdoor event in the state of New Jersey with the best demographics?" he asked.