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Council hears update on Festival at the Switchyard; contract rebid underway
Summary
City staff briefed council on the Festival at the Switchyard history, production process, costs and vendor/sponsorship approach. Staff said the city is rebidding production services and will return to council with a contract soon.
Kelly Lewis, Carrollton marketing director, briefed City Council on Jan. 21 on the city’s signature event, the Festival at the Switchyard, providing a history of the festival, a summary of entertainment-selection and production practices, budgeting pressures and next steps for contracting.
Lewis said the festival began in fall 2010 as a city-produced downtown signature event and that last year marked the 14th annual festival (one year omitted because of COVID). She described the performer-selection process as working with a contracted production company to create lists of talent within budget, negotiating around tour schedules (adding “fly” or “drive” dates when possible) and accounting for technical and rider requirements. "Budget is the number one factor for who we can have to perform," Lewis said.
Lewis described logistics and sponsorships: sponsorship packages include options such as stage mentions, logo placement on festival shirts and banners, parking passes and booth space; vendor applications open each year on June 1 and historically sell out quickly. She said safety planning is central to operations; the city has used homeland-security grant funding to acquire barriers and maintain an incident action plan (IAP) for public-safety coordination. Lewis noted production and talent costs rose after COVID and that the city is now in the bidding process for a new production-company contract; she said the contract will be brought to council for approval soon.
Council members asked procedural and operational questions about the bidding history, vendor fees, how the city tracks attendee origins (surveys online and in-person), and what budget lines fund the event. Lewis said the festival has historically been budgeted with hotel/motel tax revenue, though that fund has been depleted over time and the general fund has covered costs; next year’s event is budgeted in the city’s adopted budget pending the upcoming contract award. Lewis also outlined the event’s family-friendly focus and the city’s efforts to negotiate talent through reputation and production-company relationships.
The city will return to council with a proposed production contract after the bid process finishes; staff said the contract may be scheduled for council consideration at the next meeting or the following meeting.
