- Q: How will this campaign work?
A: Catalyst is championing the effort to raise $1 million from the community in the next
several months. Grantors have already committed $600,000 to match 2 to 1 every dollar
Catalyst raises up to $333,000—thus producing $1 million.
Individuals, families and businesses are all being asked to contribute whatever they can to
help sustain a 19-year-old event that adds an estimated $9.5 million to our economy each
year, improves our image in the rest of the nation (and, indeed, the world) and keeps ticket
prices as low as possible so everyone can afford to attend.
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- Q: What is the relationship between Catalyst and City Stages?
A: Catalyst is a socially diverse group of progressive-minded individuals with a clear stake in the future of our community and a profound understanding of how a festival like City Stages contributes to the livability index of the area. Catalyst has agreed to champion this community fund drive. Both organizations are non-profit groups dedicated to making Birmingham a better place to live.
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- Q: Why is City Stages important to Birmingham?
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A: The Birmingham News has called City Stages "Birmingham's cultural crown jewel." In addition to being the most economically and ethnically diverse large-scale event in our area, the festival regularly draws patrons from around the region, nation and the planet. In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Max Powell have twice traveled the 9,500 miles from Melbourne, Australia for the sole purpose of attending.
Sustaining City Stages also makes plain economic sense. Here are 7 reasons why:
- DIRECT TAXES PAID. If City Stages had never existed, taxpayers would have missed out on MORE THAN $2 MILLION in tax revenue so far. It also generates hundreds of thousands more in indirect taxes.
- ECONOMIC IMPACT. According to independent studies by the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau, City Stages pumps between $10 and $20 million annually into the area economy.
- ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. In addition to taxes and economic impact, the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, Operation New Birmingham (ONB), the Metropolitan Development Board and the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau have all gone on record as saying the festival plays a significant role in the achievement of their missions.
- IMAGE. Though intangible, a city's image plays a direct role in its economic vitality — for good or ill. The Birmingham News has editorialized "City Stages is far too important to Birmingham — its image, its psyche, its quality of life, its business community — to pull the plug." Cultural amenities like City Stages are part of what make a city a real city. Without them, no city can aspire to the first rank in this country.
- QUALITY OF LIFE. When it comes to the quality of life in their city, Birminghamians agree with their major daily newspaper: City Stages is an important factor. Among festivalgoers, almost every respondent (96%) in a survey of 401 patrons said the event is "Important" to the overall quality of life in Birmingham. Two-thirds (66%) said "Very Important."
- DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOCAL MUSIC INDUSTRY. It is difficult to overestimate the impact City Stages has had in developing the local music industry. Birmingham's emergence as a major national "tastemaker" market has occurred in the wake of the festival's growing national reputation. Numerous local and national acts have "broken out of Birmingham." This all translates to advertising and promotional revenue being spent in our City that would otherwise have gone elsewhere (and which does not show up in economic impact studies).
- CIVIC PRIDE. Cities and other organizations spend thousands of dollars in an effort
to build civic pride. City Stages accomplishes that mission. More than half of City Stages
festival-goers have attended other music festivals, including some of the best. But almost
all (94%) say City Stages is "As Good or Better." And roughly 6 in 10 (59%) say "Better."
More than 90% say they boast to out-of-town friends about the quality of the event.
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- Q: Does City Stages have an independent audit?
A: Yes, conducted by a respected firm of Certified Public Accountants. For a copy, send
email to andrew@citystages.org, call 205-251-1272, or mail them at P.O. Box 2266, Birmingham, AL 35201-2266.
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- Q: Is a contribution to City Stages tax-deductible?
A: City Stages is a 501{c}3 non-profit organization, which means it should be deductible for
corporations and most individual taxpayers, but check with your financial or tax advisor to
be certain.
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- Q: I read in the newspaper that City Stages has more than $800,000 in debt. How did
that occur?
A: It is important to note that, during the decade of the 1990's City Stages made sufficient
profit for it to administer an AmeriCorps program of its own that put $1,000,000 back
into the community. But, during this period, the festival was not allowed to create an
endowment without losing the free City services any community-based event must have to
survive. Thus, when a series of bad weather years struck (in 2000, 2002 and 2003), there
was no "rainy day fund" on which it could rely to offset losses.
Throughout this time, City Stages has priced its ticket as low as possible in order to ensure
that patrons from all walks of life can attend, making it more challenging for the event to
turn a profit.
Today, the greatest challenges facing any festival like City Stages are rising talent costs (the
$1.25 million the festival spends to book entertainers and to provide them with the
necessary equipment, dressing rooms, lodging, staging and transportation, and the large
expenditure it must make every year in order to turn the city center into a temporary
entertainment venue, including fencing, electrical power distribution, water distribution,
and waste management. These costs must be incurred anew every year and must be put in
place in a matter of a few days and removed in roughly 6 hours.
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- Q: Who runs City Stages?
A: The festival is produced by the Birmingham Cultural & Heritage Foundation, Inc.—
designated a 501{c}3 non-profit organization by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The
Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors who meet roughly 10 times per year.
Many festival board members are also volunteer chairpersons for festival components, e.g.
Dance Depot, GospelFest, or the Children's Festival, to name a few. George McMillan is
the Chairman of the Foundation Board of Directors and the Founder of City Stages, a role
for which he was recruited in 1988 by a group of area civic leaders.
- Q: How is Festival President George McMillan Compensated?
A: George McMillan is paid a salary of $21,000. In addition, his event management firm is
paid $24,000 to run the festival's food vending operations, and 15% of all sponsor
commissions it raises. McMillan Associates has always relied on its many other projects
(produced, for example, for the AARP, the City of Houston, Music Midtown in Atlanta,
Auburn University, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International and others) to earn the bulk of its
income, viewing City Stages more as a labor of love and, thus, pricing its fees at a discount
for their hometown event.
- Q: If I make a contribution to the community fund-drive being led by Catalyst, how do I
know the festival will not go out of business in a few years?
A: Where festivals are concerned, as with so many aspects of life, there are no guarantees.
But City Stages has been around for 19 years and overcome many challenges along the way.
The express purpose of the festival's sustainability plan—of which the community fund
drive is the most critical element—is to foster the long-term sustainability of the event so
that generations can enjoy it.
Best of all, your contribution can really make a difference because for every dollar you
contribute, grantors are matching it 2 to 1. Thus, if you contribute $250, it's as if you had
contributed $750 to the fund drive.
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- Q: How diverse is City Stages?
A: Simply put, City Stages is the most diverse large-scale event in Alabama. No other event
more fully reflects the diversity of our State, with an audience that almost perfectly mirrors
the ethnic makeup of our population at large. In fact, the unique magic of the festival is
the way in which, from Day One, it brought people together across all racial, economic and
social lines. For three days and nights, the lines that too often divide us are dissolved.
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- Q: How do City Stages ticket prices compare with other festivals?
A: Your City Stages weekend pass costs LESS THAN HALF as much as comparable
festivals, like San Diego's Street Scene ($135 for a two-day event). And, one-half to onethird
as much as some concert tickets for major headliners whom you can see at the festival
along with 150 other acts.
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- Q: Does the festival currently have a title sponsor?
A: For the first time in its history, the festival sought a title sponsor in the fall of 2004.
Early in 2005 the first prospect that was approached signed a contract for a three-year title
sponsorship. In 2006, the title sponsor—the law firm of Vines & Waldrep—was dissolved.
To their immense credit, both successor firms agreed to continue their portion of the title
sponsorship fee, although they had absolutely no legal obligation to do so. This
arrangement ended on September 30 of this year and, thus, the festival is currently
considering which brands or corporations would be most appropriate for it to approach as
prospects for title sponsorship.
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- Q: Once this money is raised, how can City Stages avoid falling back into debt in the
future?
A: The second critical element of the sustainability plan is an increase in public sector
funding of $300,000 per year for the next three years from a combination of city, county
and state government. Such funding makes plain economic sense for the jurisdictions
involved (see above).
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- Q: I've read that City Stages paid more than $1 million in 2006 just for talent expenses.
Who decides which artists are booked for City Stages and how is this process handled
each year?
A: In 2006, City Stages spent $900,000 on artist's fees and another $350,000 for their
equipment, dressing rooms, lodging, staging and transportation. The first factor that
determines who performs at City Stages is availability. Not all acts are touring at a given
time. The City Stages Programming Committee, made up of extremely knowledgeable
individuals, several of whom work in the music industry, makes recommendations as to
which acts offers should be extended. These programmers have a remarkable history of
catching major talent "on the way up," meaning the festival is able to pay less in June than
the act will be receiving just a few months later.
For example, City Stages paid Travis Tritt just $500 to play the festival because programmers identified him as a "breaking act" before many others did. Other such acts include John Mayer, Pete Yorn and the Dixie Chicks.
Perhaps the most recent example is Kanye West, booked for City Stages before receiving
multiple Grammy Awards. If an offer is made for an act and the amount offered is
acceptable, the final consideration is whether the date will "route," meaning the act can
readily travel from its previous gig to City Stages in time for their performance here.
Unlike a permanent venue, the festival can only make offers for three out of 365 days of
the year, making it more difficult to route dates.
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- Q: Why don't you just go to a one-day format?
A: A one-day (or even a two-day) format simply doesn't make economic sense, in that the
festival spends more than $150,000 building a temporary city, with its own electrical power
distribution, water, gray water and fencing. A three-day format makes the most of this huge
investment in temporary infrastructure. Also, a three-day format is essential to having all
musical genres represented, which in turn fuels diversity—the event's greatest strength.
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- Q: Why not just book three of four main acts and forget everything else?
A: The "everything else" is what makes City Stages special. Without it, the festival would
never have played a role in fostering local talent, like Taylor Hicks who began playing the
festival in his late teens. Nor would it be Birmingham's most diverse large-scale event. And,
booking only a handful of acts would actually make the festival more vulnerable to a
rainout—not less.
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- Q: Both the Birmingham News and the Black and White have called for a review of the
current City Stages model. What are Catalyst and City Stages going to do to address
these suggestions? Are there any "sacred cows"?
A: The partnership between Catalyst and City Stages was conceived precisely to recalibrate
the festival's model. It addresses both the fundraising and the creative aspects of the
challenge that lies before Birmingham's largest and most diverse special event. In other
words, the festival welcomes not just the dollars Catalyst can raise, but the ideas it can
generate. The first of several brainstorming sessions toward that end has already been
scheduled.
The only "sacred cows" are those spelled out in the articles of incorporation of the not-forprofit
City Stages:
- To highlight the musical culture of the City of Birmingham.
- To achieve a greater sense of community by bringing together people of all backgrounds,
religions, nationalities and ages from the City, State and region.
- To encourage travel, tourism, growth and economic development of our City, County
and State.
- To provide cultural opportunities for families and individuals, which create the
memories and loyalties that make cities thrive.
And finally, there is one additional principle that festival management believes should be
incorporated in the production of City Stages for now: a contiguous site (in order to keep
costs as low as possible) that has Linn Park as its heart.
As Catalyst infuses City Stages with its energy and creativity, only the "sacred cows"
detailed above must be maintained. These principles will allow the festival to continue to
make a contribution toward a vibrant, livable city center in Birmingham.
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- Q. So you're basically asking me to make a donation to assist with paying off the festival's
debt. How will getting out of debt help City Stages and make my donation feel
worthwhile?
- A: For the past several years, debt management has begun to encroach on the time and
energy that could better be spent managing the event itself—making it the best festival it
can be. Eliminating the debt will also give the festival back some of the leverage it has lost
with key vendors, thereby reducing costs. But, the main thing to keep in mind is that this
campaign is about sustaining City Stages. Debt retirement is one essential step toward that
goal. Thus, when you make a contribution, you invest in a much broader vision that will
permit the sustainability of City Stages into the future.
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