In this file photo, festivalgoers dance during the Huck Finn Jubilee at Guasti Regional Park in Ontario June 13, 2015.
The Huck Finn Jubilee Bluegrass Music Festival has been pulled from the Greater Ontario Convention & Visitors Bureau’s lineup of entertainment events.
In announcing its decision in a prepared statement Friday, the bureau said the bluegrass music festival doesn’t pencil out financially.
Michael Krouse, bureau president and CEO, wrote a letter to the community and past festival-goers, saying that Huck Finn is “not meeting the requirements” of the bureau’s “core mission for funding and goals to create a significant economic impact to our region.”
The festival moved to Ontario from the Mojave Narrows Regional Park in Victorville after producer Don Tucker died in 2012. This year, the event celebrated its 40th anniversary.
The Greater Ontario Convention & Visitors Bureau took over sole management of the event in 2014. Just last year, the festival managed to land comedian Steve Martin as part of its lineup.
“Although the number of attendees grew year over year,” Krouse said in his letter, “the rate of growth was not substantial enough to meet our goals and financially justify continuing the festival.”
Krouse said by phone Friday afternoon the festival was successful and had good ticket sales, but its wasn’t attracting the number of visitors from outside the area who would have booked rooms at area hotels.
The 2016 festival had a three-day attendance of 39,570, according to numbers released in June by the Convention and Visitors Bureau. A press release touted: “The economic benefit to our local community is fantastic and it is rewarding to hear the rave reviews from the fans that visited the Greater Ontario region to attend the event. “
Now, Krouse said, “It simply did not generate enough guest room stays.” To continue, “it would have to be no less than 5,000 to 6,000 rooms (booked) a night to justify the event,” Krouse said.
Many who attended the event would commute for the day and then head back home. Others stayed in town but either camped or brought their recreational vehicles.
Those familiar with such festivals say that camping is a significant component of bluegrass festivals as are the jam sessions in which fans meet up with family, friends and other musicians to make music together.
Krouse declined to say how much the Convention and Visitors Bureau spent to host the event but would say, “the investments versus the return is simply too high.”
Booking important acts was a significant festival expensive, Krouse added, but it was part of an approach meant to grow the festival from what had been a smaller event.
“We just did a very different model,” he said.
Reached Friday, the festival founder’s son, Brian Tucker, said he was “sad for the bluegrass community.”