Love it or hate it, Bele Chere is here to stay – but it could use a few tweaks. So say upwards of 100 people who attended a City Council public forum on the festival’s future Tuesday night at the Asheville Civic Center.
Citizens and downtown business people who attended the forum said they liked the event in general and see it as a positive for Asheville. However, during group breakout sessions, attendees suggested several ways to improve the festival. Some of the final ideas include:
• Move the festival from July to another, slower business month when the event’s $12 million impact on the local economy would be more beneficial.
• Consider moving back to an all-free festival, nixing the ticketed events for certain headline acts.
• Allow local microbrewers to sell their suds (Budweiser’s and other Anheuser-Busch brands’ virtual monopoly on beer sales and promotion was deemed unpalatable).
• Return the festival to its Asheville-centric roots and permit more citizen involvement in planning, especially when it comes to headline musical acts.
• In addition to Bele Chere, consider producing smaller festivals that directly celebrate Asheville’s contribution to such things as food, art, music and film.
Those ideas and others will go to the Bele Chere board for consideration on Feb. 10. A final package of potential changes to the festival will then go to City Council for a possible vote sometime later this month, said Mayor Terry Bellamy. Those who could not attend the event can forward their own ideas until Feb. 9 by sending an e-mail to city public relations director Lauren Bradley at lbradley@ashevillenc.gov.
For a full report on the forum, check out the Feb. 7 issue of Xpress. In the meantime, what changes would you like to see to the festival?
– Hal L. Millard, staff writer
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.