In an effort to continue the free Summer Beach Concert Series, the Hermosa Beach City Council and the promoter behind the concerts are looking at ways other than event sponsorship to bring in the necessary funding — two paid concerts following the free series that would help pay costs for the popular summer events.
City Council approved a revision to its contract with Saint Rocke, the local live concert venue behind the free concerts, to extend its contract until 2018 on Tuesday night. It was originally set to expire in 2015. Under the new contract, the city will not be able to cancel the event on a year to year basis without good cause, such as a public safety issue. Saint Rocke owner Allen Sanford said knowing the event can’t be cancelled so easily from year to year will allow him to secure bigger sponsorship deals for the free concerts. In the past, event sponsors have included groups like Skechers and the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce.
Sanford said currently none of the $55,000 to $80,000 budget needed to put on the Summer Beach Concert Series this August has been raised. His proposed solution to the lack of funding was to allow Saint Rocke to host two weekends of paid concerts in Parking Lot A of Pier Plaza in the fall and spring — a proposal the council stopped short of approving.
Each concert would have a cap of 1,000 people and tickets would be $100.
Council members said there were still too many questions to approve this option. The events, which would potentially have hard alcohol, beer and wine for sale would block off 140 parking spots and could also be an issue when it comes to security and noise, councilmember Peter Tucker said.
“How is staff going to handle 1,000 people on the plaza when we already have a problem year round?” Tucker said.
City Council asked staff to come back soon with more options for funding the free summer concerts, including holding the paid off season concerts in another location or even looking at the city contributing to some of the costs of the free summer concerts.
The city could potentially earn the greater of $10,000 or the sum of 2 percent of ticket sales and 15 percent of revenue from event sponsors. The city would also stand to receive 30 percent of any revenue that came in from potentially live streaming the concerts. However, the monetary value of that is currently unknown.
Sanford said he was open to other options to make the free concerts viable, but that he needed the city to work with him as a partner.
“If the community doesn’t like it, than let’s think of another solution,” Sanford said.
If the paid off season concerts do become a reality, Sanford said they would have a mix of local and national talent, with performers like Gary Clark Jr., Johnny Lang and B.B. King.
Councilmember Carolyn Petty said that hard alcohol doesn’t typically sell very well at events in the community and that the off-season concerts might be more successful if they just included wine. She also said it was important to consider the demographic they wanted to target for this event. The paid concerts would also include a family-friendly portion of the day where admission would be free and no alcohol would be sold.
Sanford said he understand the concern about alcohol being sold at the paid concerts.
“There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way,” Sanford said. “I share everyone’s concerns, but I believe in a controlled environment. It doesn’t have to be irresponsible or dangerous.”
Saint Rocke took over the free summer concerts, which run on Sundays in August, in 2009. Sanford said that each concert brings in 4,000 to 8,000 people. While In the past, event sponsors have covered the cost, Samford said that is no longer the case and that sponsorship is not sustainable in the long term
“We think it’s a cool thing to be putting on a concert for 6,000 people ever Sunday [in August],” Sanford said. “But the money has to come from somewhere.”
