HAMILTON CITY COUNCIL
Jerry Brown Arts Festival needs home
Minter: Wandering could hurt future of event
By ED HOWELL Staff Writer, Journal Record
HAMILTON - In advance to suggesting a new civic center in the area, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Alabama Arts Council said the Jerry Brown Arts Festival could be in peril if it does not find a permanent home that a civic center could provide.
Marla Minter, in addressing the Hamilton City Council at its Monday, March 15, formal session, gave a report on the March 6-7 festival, noting that it appeared to go well.
As for the old Walmart building, which housed the festival, Minter said the organizers enjoy using it but wished for the building’s owner, Regi Klement, and the community that he is able to sell the facility to create jobs.
Minter said the festival has come “from crawling to walking” in eight years, hopefully with impacting the local economy.
“Going from that point, we need a permanent home,” she said.
“The one thing that would really hurts us as a permanent festival is to not have a place.”
In eight years, the festival has had three homes: the Bevill Center, the E.T. Sims Jr. Neighborhood Facilities Building (recreation
center) and the old Walmart building.
Minter said one of the keys to the success of the festival is that it is one of the first arts festivals of the year in the nation, thus getting some of the finest artists.
“But, as you well know, on the first weekend in March you can have beautiful weather like we had last weekend, or you can have snow or hail or tornadoes or wind. The weather can be 30 degrees or it can be 83. You just don’t know,” she said.
“We, as an arts council, would like to work with the city, the county and the state and even to the federal level to start a civic center,” she said. “I think this is something our community needs desperately.”
She said that tourism is the second-largest industry in the state economy, behind agriculture. Besides the arts festival, there are many other community events that can be held in such a facility.
She pointed out that with this year’s Jerry Brown Arts Festival, a total of 5,000 people from 16 states attended the festival, an increase from 14 states.
The overall attendance decreased from 6,000 last year, although with the economy she said organizers were still well pleased.
People as far away as Texas, Idaho, Arizona, Missouri, Minnesota, Oregon and Pennsylvania attended the event, she said.
“The sky’s the limit,” she said. “People will come to Hamilton, Alabama. People will come to Marion County. Look how many people Mule Day draws.”
Minter said there are many things in the community to promote.
“If we don’t toot our own horn, it’s not going to get tooted,” she said. “I know economically, it is a difficult time, but at some point we need to commit to taking the next step.
“If we are going to continue to solicit top-flight artists from outside the area, going to Memphis to Atlanta to Nashville and places like that, we need to have a home for our festival to bring them to,” Minter said.
Minter said that this year 67 artists from five states participated in the festival, which she said was very successful. This year a record number of corporate sponsors (55) and volunteers (30) signed up to help.
The Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourism Association put ads in two Lexington, Ky., magazines on behalf of the festival. A billboard was seen promoting the event in the busy mall area in Tupelo, Miss.
On Friday, March 26, Minter reiterated in an e-mail that the lack of a permanent home for the festival--which had to make a last-minute decision on where to hold this year’s show--“will eventually harm its growth and reputation and have a negative impact on the quality of artists we are able to get to participate in the festival.”
