The Jacksonville Festival of Lights appears to be returning to the Morgan County Fairgrounds this year with some new attractions and a different sponsorship package.
WJIL/WJVO Owner/General Manager Sarah Shellhammer spoke to the South Jacksonville Board of Trustees this past Thursday to ask the board to return as a sponsor for this year’s event. The trustees are currently mulling whether or not they will be a $2,500 sponsor for the event this holiday season.
Shellhammer says that last year’s event was successful despite not knowing any expectations: “Last year, I thought we had an extremely successful year. We didn’t know what to expect. It was our pilot year. We saw over 5,000 cars. We had over 20,000 people go through it. Last year, I asked you for $5,000 and I know that there were some discussions whether or not you wanted to be involved in it. Obviously, if you would like to be involved in it at that level again, we can certainly accommodate that.”
Shellhammer says they learned a lot about attendance and will be making adjustments to the nearly two-month long event to have people keep coming back: “One of the things we are going to do differently is that we will have the booklets again. The booklets are going to be distributed throughout the community prior to the event – 30 days prior to the event. People can go through them to see the schedule of events, because we plan on having a couple of different things. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is going to make an appearance this year. We are going to have a couple of different character nights, a couple of theme nights, and in addition to that we are going to feature ornaments that are going to feature business logos this year.”
Shellhammer says that last year’s fundraising goal of $100,000 came up a bit short, but her organization was able to make up the difference to finance the event. She says with the collection of gate fees last year, the event was able to start with a balance of $27,000 – with $25,000 going towards a deposit for bringing displays back for this year. She says the goal of the event is to become somewhat self-sustaining, but with the expectation that some fundraising will always need to be done annually to keep the event going. She said that she hopes the sponsorship requests can get smaller over time as the community provides more support to the annual event.
Village trustees discussed the possibility that the event may not qualify for the village’s tourism grants because the event does not bring people to stay in the village’s hotels or to eat any of the village’s restaurants due to the event’s location and hours of operation. A few trustees noted that one of the lone benefits is likely someone getting as one of the village’s filling stations.
The sponsorship was placed on the action item agenda for the village’s next board meeting in November.