Concert in the Cornfield numbers help South Jacksonville Tourism Fund

By Ryne Turke on November 4, 2016 at 10:30am

Financials from the 2016 Concert in the Cornfield were the highlight of last night’s South Jacksonville Board of Trustees Meeting.

The concert brought in $59,240.50 in revenues and contributed $58,851.07 to the Village’s Tourism Fund.

Trustee Paula Belobrajdic-Stewart says the concert is really about being able to give back to the community.

“The main objective of the Concert in the Cornfield is a tourism event, and in the past there was always a question about the ways the funds were handled, so the past two years we were really careful about making sure the Board knew everything we were doing. So I think now, the numbers we have the past two years, they’re solid numbers, so we can bring those to a committee meeting now and we can talk about it and see what does the Board want to do with the this. Do they want to expand the concert? Do they want to give us an even bigger budget so maybe we can get a bigger name talent? You can’t make decisions like that unless you know what your bottom dollar is,” says Belobrajdic-Stewart.

One addition to this year’s Concert in the Cornfield was a beer tent with local bands performing. Belobradjic-Stewart felt the beer tent had an extremely positive impact.

“People were telling us that they wanted a true beer tent. In past years we just had a tent, you’d walk in and get your beer and walk out, that’s not really a beer tent where you enjoy music. The attendance in there was great, it was wall-to-wall people and that’s what we want. So if we can give the people something that they’re asking for, that naturally means they’re going to attend. We sold much more in beer than we did in past, and there are different things we can do to improve on that some more, and that’s what we want to do, get bigger and better every year. But again, it’s at the Board’s discretion, and now I feel like they have the tools to make a really wise decision,” Belobrajdic-Stewart explains.

While Belobrajdic-Stewart says a lot of times, people get too caught up on how much money the concert made or how many people attended, she was quick to emphasize the hard work of John Green and Tiffany Peters.

“Unless you’re really involved, you don’t understand the man-power hours that really go into creating an event like that, and our Water and Sewer Superintendent, our Utilities Superintendent John Green, he’s tremendous, he knows everything and when you say there’s a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ it’s definitely John Green. And this year we had the addition of the Office Manager Treasurer Tiffany Peters. She’s incredible because our bottom line is numbers, valid, transparent, clear numbers, and if anyone’s got a question she’s got the answers. And it’s the public, they have a right to ask, and we have the answers and that’s because of Tiffany,” says Belobrajdic-Stewart.

Also discussed at last night’s meeting were the events during the week of Veteran’s Day, as well as an update on the tablets for the South Jacksonville Police Department.

Stay tuned for our afternoon broadcast to hear from South Jacksonville Police Chief Josh Hallock on the progress of those tablets.