Community center awaits county funding for concerts
Show us the money.
This year’s Bradenton Gulf Island Concert Series ended a month ago, but it could be another month before there are complete financial results.
The concerts were held at the Center of Anna Maria Island on the field and in the gym at 407 Magnolia Ave., Anna Maria.
The four-concert series began May 13 with a performance by the Marshall Tucker Band and ended with The Grass Roots concert July 2.
The center is a nonprofit that provides recreational and wellness programming for the island community.
The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau launched the concert series in 2019 as a way to boost tourism to the island and bolster local businesses with revenue.
However, Chris Culhane, the center’s executive director, wrote in a July 30 email to The Islander that the nonprofit had yet to receive funding and reimbursement of costs from the BACVB for “the last few concerts” in the series.
According to documents The Islander obtained via a public records request, the center requested $100,000 from the BACVB in November 2020 to host and market up to four concerts this year.
So far, the BACVB has received three invoices from the center for reimbursement totaling $75,000, including:
• $25,000 for event planning and marketing;
• $16,666.67 for the first concert, the Marshall Tucker Band;
• $33,333.33 for the next two concerts — Simon Kirke from Bad Company and Steve Augeri from Journey.
The center also hosted The Grass Roots, but an invoice for that concert was not included in the documents obtained by The Islander.
The center reported $9,560 in ticket sales for both the Kirke and Augeri concerts, as well as $38,420 for the Marshall Tucker Band.
The BACVB and the center worked with the producer of the 2020 concerts, Rich Engler of Pittsburgh, who receives a share of revenues.
With only the first reimbursement for $25,000 marked in the documents as “paid” and lacking one invoice, around $75,000 remains unpaid.
“It now appears that we will not receive these funds until mid-August,” Culhane said.
He did not detail how the delayed reimbursements may impact the center’s bottom line for its 2020-21 fiscal year, which ended June 30, but added that he hopes to tell “a great story about how the center fought through adversity and COVID shutdowns” and still managed to “end the year in the black.”
The center budget was $26,290 in the black at the end of May, a month during which fundraising spiked, thanks to a matching challenge for donations and the beginning of ticket sales for the concerts.
The center’s $194,823.10 in fundraising revenue in May was the largest month of the year by more than double.
It’s unclear how much revenue was from ticket sales and sponsorship fees and the center hadn’t released its own finances for hosting the series as of July 31.
“We are still currently paying expenses and collecting revenue from the shows,” Culhane wrote.