Urban Jacksonville

A while ago I posted I was helping organize a festival in Springfield. Well, I’m not anymore. The festival we were planning was too big for Springfield to handle, and definitely too big for me.

Too many false starts and a dwindling calendar forced us to reconsider time and again. Eventually we had to call it. It’s sad, but in a way I’m relieved. I learned so much from this experience, I’ll never run an event like that again.

I MUST EMPHASIZE The original Summetime in the City event, a hip-hop festival, will still take place in Springfield at 9th and Main. The date is TDB and I know this is confusing as hell, but bear with me.

For the past two years Summertime in the City has been a successful event that grew from the back patio of Burrito Gallery, to the parking lot of Burrito Gallery, to (we thought) 9 blocks of ever-loving Springfield. Therein lies the flaw, those 9 block require so much planning, documentation and resources that the festival was doomed before it started. It’s funny to look back and see how naive I was. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but give our timeline and resources, we really were kidding ourselves.

So keep an ear out, Summertime in the City is coming to a neighborhood near you and I’ll announce it as soon as I hear the date. You haven’t heard the last from me, I have a huge event coming up in late September, early October. It will blow your partisan mind.

If you have any questions please ask and I’ll be as frank as I can. If you were involved with the festival and this is the first you’ve heard of this I’d like to apologize for not reaching out to you personally. It wasn’t my intention to have you read about this now, but there were so many people involved, I kind of last track of who-knew-what.

Joey

Tags: summertime in the city