Family festival, Civil War event coming to Elgin, but iFest on hold
The city of Elgin will offer two new events this year - a Civil War re-enactment in early June and a family festival in late August - and will postpone its International Festival, or iFest, to next year "to reinvigorate it."
The 2017 lineup consisting of 12 special events is expected to cost $494,000 with profits of $321,000, for a net loss of $173,000, Barb Keselica, special events and community engagement manager, told the city council Wednesday night.
That's down from an overall loss of $524,000 in 2008, when the city offered more events and employed more staff members to organize them, Keselica said.
The Civil War Experience is planned for June 10-11 on land east of the Sports Complex that the city aquired last year.
The new family festival, whose name is to be decided, will be Aug. 26 at Settlers Park, 3046 Sutton St.
In each of its five iterations, iFest has been plagued by rain, first at Festival Park and then on the Riverside Drive promenade. The plan would be to hold the festival April 21, 2018, in partnership with Gail Borden Public Library, both at the library and at the Centre of Elgin, Keselica said. The city and library are beginning discussions on the topic, she said.
The 2018 iFest would include, as always, food vendors, performers and booths. The date was chosen because "at the end of April people are starting to itch to get out of the house," Keselica said.
In addition to Keselica's proposal, council member Tish Powell proposed looking into using the $30,000 the city typically spends on iFest to organize one or more festivals at Festival Park that would offer food, drinks and dancing into the night. People miss that, she said, pointing to past events BoriquaFest and Fiesta Salsa.
Council member John Prigge asked to look into the cost of weather insurance for the Civil War event, which will involve 300 to 500 re-enactors. The city has weather insurance for Nightmare on Chicago Street, but that event, at a cost of $230,000, is the most expensive the city runs. The Civil War event, which council member Terry Gavin has been a proponent of, is expected to cost $25,000.
The only "no" vote to moving forward with the events plan and the suggestions council members made at the committee of the whole meeting came from council member Toby Shaw, who said Keselica's proposal was comprehensive enough. "What we have is plenty, there is no need to shuffle events around like a checkerboard," he said.
The lineup includes the Daddy Daughter Dance on Feb. 17-18, the Elgin Valley Fox Trot on May 27, Concerts in the Park from June through August, Movies in the Park from July through August, Art and Soul on the Fox on Aug. 5-6, Nightmare on Chicago Street on Oct. 21, and the Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Dec. 2. The city will partner again with Grand Victoria Casino for the Fourth of July fireworks show, to be held either July 1 or July 2.
City staff members also will take on coordinating the Fourth of July parade - at an expected net loss of $35,000 - which in the past was done by the Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin. The association wanted to move the parade downtown, but city officials wanted it to stay in the residential neighborhood just north of downtown.
The association's $135,000 yearly contract with the city expires in March, and it's unclear what the new contract will look like.