Moogfest, which in spite of all the hype continues to score high marks from me for fostering art and innovation, is moving to Durham. It’s for business reasons, but the news is focused on gummint gimmes. Moog received grants totaling $180,000 from Asheville and Buncombe County the year the festival lost $1.5 million from a $2.74 million budget. They came back to request $250,000 for the next round and were rejected. Doing some tiny math, the amount the festival received from local government was 6.6 percent of the festival’s budget, and likely not enough to make or break anything. Economic development analysis by the Economic Development Coalition of Asheville-Buncombe County and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce determined the public funds had an ROI of 2, which is nothing compared to the hundreds promised by cronies. (You will note, the Moog festival analysis was performed after the fact and not before like the cronies’.) Anyway, the Moog people are acting like they don’t need any stimulus from Durham, but they will see what they can get. Of course, I’d like to see what the private sector can do for Moogfest. All those stars surely have some wiggle room in their drug budgets.
by Leslee Kulba
Wild West blogger