Kentuck Festival of the Arts will move to Tuscaloosa for 2024

The 2024 Kentuck Festival of the Arts will be held in Tuscaloosa, at a site to be determined within probably four to six weeks, after the Kentuck Art Center signed an memorandum of understanding, or MOU, put forth by the Tuscaloosa City Council at its Tuesday meeting.

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The MOU is basically a handshake to start the deal, which will see the 53rd Kentuck Festival move into Tuscaloosa for the first time in its history. Since it sprang from the roots of a 1971 downtown Northport heritage event, the festival has been held in Northport's Kentuck Park.

Disagreements over a proposed contract with the Northport City Council led the Kentuck board in November to empower Kentuck staff to begin seeking a new location, with the expressed wish it remain in Tuscaloosa County.

"In the last several days, we have worked with Kentuck to explore ways to retain the festival in our region,” Mayor Walt Maddox said, in a written release. “This festival is a nationally recognized and time-honored event, and it was critical it stay in our community.”

“The Kentuck Festival of the Arts is one of the greatest treasures this county has seen,” said City Council President Kip Tyner. “I’m proud that the city could provide an opportunity to keep Kentuck here. The council and I look forward to working with them.”

The MOU was signed by Maddox and Kentuck Executive Director Amy Echols at noon Wednesday.

In addition to paragraphs of legalese setting out basics, the MOU notes that the festival would promote the arts in Tuscaloosa and provide a family-friendly event with amusement and edification. The agreement also says that the city would in return supply additional funding and in-kind services to aid in creation and running of the festival. The MOU notes Tuscaloosa has already made provision for $20,000 in agency funding for 2024. Additional funding levels and other support details will depend on the site location.

Two options are mentioned in the MOU: Snow Hinton Park and Parker-Haun Park.

Earlier this month, the city broke ground on a $10.2 million upgrade for Snow Hinton Park, a 40-acre site abutting McFarland Boulevard and Hargrove Road. The improvements will include better lighting and camera systems, expanded parking and vehicle access, and adding a central plaza and walking path.

Parker-Haun became the new name for the River District Park in November, named for families who co-own Parker Towing, one of the largest barge lines in the U.S., and for their support of the coming Saban Center. The Saban Center will be built up the hill from Parker-Haun Park, on the site of the old The Tuscaloosa News building, connected by a walkway, the River District Pedestrian Bridge, which held a ribbon-cutting Dec. 8. The park itself was completed and opened in September 2022.

Parker-Haun Park stands adjacent to the Mercedes-Benz Amphitheater and along the western Riverwalk, in the shadow of the the Hugh R. Thomas Bridge, and includes green space, river-viewing areas, plaza space, a pavilion and public restrooms. Should the festival locate there, it would likely sprawl around the amphitheater and onto the Riverwalk, as Parker-Haun is smaller, about 4 acres.

"It's a damn big endeavor," said Kentuck Board President Bobby Bragg, moving an entire festival from its 7-acre footprint in Kentuck Park.

The two-day October festival — for 2024, it will be Oct. 19-20, at the Tuscaloosa site to be determined ― draws 20,000 visitors annually, some coming from parts far and wide. The festival features 270 folk, outsider and contemporary artists, the Brother Ben Music Stage that hosts Americana, gospel, blues, folk and other roots music, the Kathryn Tucker Windham Spoken Word Stage, children's hands-on events, traditional crafts demonstrations, food and drink trucks and more.

"There are reasons for the two options out there, and complicating factors in those two," Bragg said, "as well as complicating factors in where we've had it for years."

Kentuck's operating on the baseline need for a similar footprint: 7 acres for festival grounds, and about 4 acres of contiguous parking, roughly 800 parking spots within a relatively close walking distance.

"We are not trying to scale back the festival by any means," Bragg said. "This coming year, we're trying to make the best of a difficult situation."

Communication breaks down with Northport

It wasn't just contractual worries, including a lowered funding offer, and the wish for a five-year locked-in agreement to hold it in Northport, that concerned Kentuck's board. It was also a mound of dirt. The city of Northport is planning to build a major sports complex on the land adjacent to the Kentuck Park site, and to that end had procured 140,000 cubic square feet of dirt from the city of Tuscaloosa, drawn from the massive $65 million undertaking to extend McWright's Ferry Road. During the Oct. 14-15, 2023 festival, the mound loomed to the south of the park, on the place where VIP and artists' parking had been in previous years.

"The construction that started in Kentuck Park was definitely a significant impact on the festival," Bragg said. "In the final weeks, we were very concerned whether we might even be able to have the festival," though he added the Northport employees in charge of keeping things running did a "masterful job."

But the board felt communication and coordination with the Northport City Council was difficult.

"I'm not sure anybody understands the amount of stakeholders we feel we have an obligation to, in putting on a successful festival," Bragg said. Hundreds of artists depend on their coveted slots in the festival; 300 volunteers put in sweat-equity to make each one happen; and thousands of patrons view the Kentuck Festival of the Arts as an essential facet of their year. Planning for each festival begins just days after the previous one closes.

The Kentuck Art Center's year-around activities, which include workshops, classes and other outreach, regular events such as the first Thursday Art Nights and Saturday Art Markets, working artists' studio spaces, exhibits, gift shop and more, depend greatly on a successful festival, as do the paychecks of several full-time employees at the nonprofit organization.

The Kentuck Festival of the Arts has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Southern Living, American Style Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler, and been named a “Local Legacy” by the United States Library of Congress. The Alabama Department of Tourism picked it as one of the best top-10 events to attend, and Alabama Magazine named it among the "Best of Bama 2022." In 2018, the Festival was ranked fifth in the nation, based on artists' self-reported sales, in the category of classic and contemporary craft shows, by Sunshine Artists Magazine.

Even before gates open, Kentuck puts out a monetary investment of $140,000 or more, just to prep the show. The proceeds usually double that or more, in a good year, keeping the wheels rolling. Kentuck staff have excelled recently in grant-writing, including landing a $10,000 National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America award to support its Boxes of Joy, which supplies art projects and instruction at Northport and Tuscaloosa public housing, and the Tuscaloosa County Juvenile Detention Center.

"We are full believers in the fact that arts and arts education for children, as well as adults, enriches lives, changes perspectives and offers hope," Bragg said. Year-'round activities at the Art Center ― festival aside — have quadrupled since 2019, he said, and Kentuck hopes to keep up that pace.

Will Kentuck festival return to Northport?

Bragg emphasized that this signed MOU relates specifically to the 2024 festival, and nothing else.

The Northport City Council on Dec. 11 offered a new contract, bumping back up to the $80,000 (2023 level) funding, asking only for the previous one-year contract, guaranteeing that Kentuck Park would be available, and promising that the dirt would be contained and enmeshed. When the Kentuck item came up on the Tuscaloosa council agenda, Northport Council President Jeff Hogg sent out a wide-release email letter asking Kentuck to meet, before Tuesday's vote.

"We understand there are people who will be disappointed," Bragg said. "We also know that when people are out of their comfort zone, that's when they learn and grow the best."

The Kentuck board is steadfast, deliberate, but responsive and dynamic, he said.

"Our priority is to the organization, and by extension to that festival," Bragg said. "We made the best decision we felt we could make with incomplete and imperfect information. We will continue to monitor conditions, and want to work to rebuild our relationships with Northport and the Northport City Council."

The Kentuck Art Center is housed in a two-building campus at 503 Main Ave., in downtown Northport. Kentuck owns the buildings, and rents its courtyard from the Shirley family.

Asked whether that suggests future festivals might return to Kentuck Park, Bragg said "Everything's possible. Our No. 1 focus, after we got through this year's festival, was to make decisions for the 2024 festival."

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa lands Kentuck Festival of the Arts for 2024