N.C. Pickle Festival costs, benefits questioned by town officials, business owners

The N.C. Pickle Festival attracts tens of thousands of people, and their money, to Mount Olive each April, but despite that success some local business owners are questioning how or even if the festival benefits them or the town.

They are being joined in that questioning by some town board members who want to know why the town is footing some of the cost associated with putting on the festival without reaping any of the festival revenue.

Those issues, as well as a need for better communications and addressing the growing demand for parking during the festival, were raised during a Thursday afternoon public meeting between the town board and the nonprofit North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. board of directors, that in partnership with the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce, coordinates the award-winning festival.

There appeared to be a general agreement between both boards that better communications and more meetings concerning any possible changes were needed.

Festival Co-chair Julie Beck, who is also Chamber president and treasurer of the North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. board, said the meetings and any possible changes need to happen sooner than later since festival vendor applications go out in December.

Also, planning for the event is ongoing year-round, she added.

During the nearly 90-minute session held at the Historic Train Depot, and attended by about 10 members of the public, it appeared that some town board members were unfamiliar with the festival’s history and operation.

Festival Co-chair Lynn Williams, who is also a member of North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. board, provided a history of the festival and gave an overview of its finances.

The town board first raised its questions during an April budget planning session. Commissioner Delreese Simmons and Mayor Jerome Newton, who led the questioning then also led the Thursday discussion.

A sticking point for Simmons has been the vendor fees charged by the festival.

During the Thursday session, Simmons said town ordinances require vendors fees to be paid to the town. Town Clerk Sherry Davis noted that in the past that the board, at the request of festival organizers, has waived the vendor fees.

However, in the past few years no such request had been made, she said.

Simmons also questioned funds the festival receives through the Wayne County Tourism and Development fund asking if it was a grant or taxes.

According to Williams, the festival has been applying for and receiving the funds (occupancy taxes collected from the Sleep Inn) since 2018.

The funds are used for promotions of events, Beck said.

Newton wanted to know how it was established to pay those funds to the festival and not the town since the town could do tourism as well.

“Typically, I would copy the town manager so that he would know (tourism) funds were being requested,” Williams said. “We can certainly look at ways to tighten that up.”

Newton agreed that the arrangement might need review.

Dan Sullivan, North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. board president, pointed out that the funds are not exclusive to the Pickle Festival.

“Theoretically, any organization that puts on a festival that has marketing expenses could apply to that group to be reimbursed for those expenses,” he said. “So, it is not just dedicated to us.”

“Including the town?,” Newton asked. “Yes,” Sullivan replied.

Newton said the process was new to him and that he had not known about it until it came across his desk.

“In the past the town has requested money for various things,” Beck explained. “So it has been done before. It’s just unfortunate that you weren’t aware of that when you came into this position, but it has definitely been done before.

“It has not just been us, the town has definitely received funding from that pot.”

Former Mayor Joe Scott requested and received funding on behalf of the town for some banners for the downtown area, Williams added.

Simmons said that the town has to pay overtime for employees to clean up following the festival.

Earlier in the meeting Sullivan had said the festival could not be put on without all of the volunteers who help. However, Simmons said he does not see any festival volunteers helping with the clean-up work that is another impact on the town.

And leading up to the day of the Pickle Festival town employees spend time hanging banners and doing other work, Simmons said.

That has people questioning why other work in the town hasn’t been done, he said. The town is not being taken care for about a whole month because of that, Simmons continued.

It is a balance, Williams responded.

“We just have to figure out what the balance should be,” she said before Simmons interrupted to say police who work during the festival are not well paid.

“That is a conversation for this group,” Williams said. “We need to figure out what the town expects and what we can do. We will certainly have those conversations.”

One of the conversations will need to address parking, she said.

During the most recent festival people were parking in places where no one had ever parked before, Williams said. People were parking and walking long distances to downtown and also parking in parking lots of local businesses, she said.

Business owners weighed in as well with their concerns.

“The Pickle Festival itself is meant to promote the town, to promote the pickle plant and hopefully promote the town,” said Scott King whose family owns the Mount Olive Piggly Wiggly. “Well, over the last at least 20 years the Pickle Festival has grown, it has ballooned.”

King asked how the festival’s success could be qualified or quantified.

“Is it just because there are way more people in Mount Olive for two days, and after that nothing happened in the town,” he said. “And the town has shrunk over the last 20 years as the Pickle Festival has gotten to be one of biggest festivals in the state of North Carolina.

“So my thing is how can you say, or how can you gauge or say the Pickle Festival is a positive for Mount Olive if economically and size-wise the town is actually diminished while the Pickle Festival has grown?”

King questioned if the festival has grown too big for its footprint.

“At the end of it are we just trying to have a great, big festival and say we had a lot of people come here and nothing happened,” he continued. “It impacts a lot of businesses as it grows.

“That is my thing — is how can we say it is successful? Are we just doing it by sheer numbers and keep growing the numbers or would we be better off to scale back to a normal general event that the town can handle and it does impact and promote the town? The Pickle Festival has gotten bigger, but it is not helping the town — it just seems like the money goes out of town, almost like the county fair,” he added.

King said he suspects that 80 percent of the festival vendors are not from Mount Olive and that most of the people who attend are not from the area either.

And then nobody comes back, he said.

“That has always been my concern about the Pickle Festival growing and growing is that we are putting all of this effort into it and many of us, like you said, take our own money and help support the Pickle Festival when in return, I mean, we don’t really get anything,” he said.

Beck responded that no goal is set and that she thinks the festival has grown because of social media.

Even if the festival was not advertised, Beck said she thinks it would still attract a large crowd.

“There are a lot of people who benefit,” Beck said. “A lot of our churches do it for parking. Most of our civic groups have booths. Our youth groups have booths.

“And I do hear from many of our merchants that the best day they have all year is on festival day.”

The town might not benefit as an entity, but individuals and citizens in the town are benefiting from it, she said.

The festival has gone from destination marketing to destination management, Beck added.

“We have to figure how we are going to manage this festival and it may be that we scale it back,” Beck said. “But not being a gated entry it is hard to say, ‘Sorry, you can’t come in.’”

Beck told King she empathizes with him because of his business challenge because of parking issues during the festival.

However, King said he was not even worried about his business and was talking about the town as a whole.

It was just one day and it about a 25 percent business loss, he said.

The town has shrunk so how has the extra promotion helped, he said.

King questioned if there was a way to gear the festival to help the town grow versus just having a lot of people come to town.

“The Pickle Festival is one piece of identifying Mount Olive I think,” Williams said. “It is a quality-of-life thing and has events that people come and enjoy, see the town and support local businesses.

“The fact that maybe the town has not grown in 20 years is not necessarily hooked onto the North Carolina Pickle Festival. There are a lot of factors at work on what’s going on with the town of Mount Olive. We have our challenges in the town.”

Those include socioeconomic issues, and the town cannot grow without getting out from under a moratorium on new sewer hookups, she added.

Williams said she thinks their goal for a successful festival was that people came and had a good time and that it was worth the effort for the people who set up and participated.

Also contributing to the success is that people speak well of the town and its people wherever they go, she said.

“Those are intangible things,” Williams continued. “The festival is a piece of the character of our town. When people say Mount Olive they will say Pickle Festival and pickles or pickle company.”

Donna Denning, whose family owns Bobby Denning Furniture, said she understands that vendor fees vary depending on what the vendor sells.

She asked what the fee is for a food vendor.

For a commercial food vendor, the fee $290 for one 15-foot space, Williams said. Most will need more than one space meaning about $600 for two spaces, she added.

Denning asked if there had been an increase in the fee in recent years and whether it included use of town water.

“Not in a while,” Williams said. “The water is included. We don’t charge additional for the water.”

Williams said there have been discussions about it being a time to look at a possible fee increase.

“So the water is provided by the town,” Denning said.

The town of Wendell has a fee if a vendor uses water during festivals there, Commissioner Barbara Kornegay said.

“Is there anyway possibly next year add an additional fee,” Denning questioned.

Vendors are not going to be truthful about what they bring in so the festival can’t charge a percentage on what they make, Denning said.

Denning asked if the festival could charge vendors another $250 and give those monies to the town to help with its expenses.

“There should be something that is charged to benefit this town,” she added. “The town needs to benefit somehow from this Pickle Festival and it is not. That’s my opinion. I don’t see where it is benefiting at all.

“At the end of the day business is business, and it’s costing this town and it’s costing businesses, and I feel like I am just not speaking for myself to have this Pickle Festival. We will support it if it benefits us and this town. You will have all the support from the businesses that you need, but until it does it is going to be hard for us to take that into consideration.”

Local businessman Gerald Bell suggested the town and festival organizers consider an impact fee for vendors in an attempt to recoup some of the expenses the town incurs through vendors’ utility usage.

“I don’t think we are opposed to anything we have discussed today,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think there is anything that we have heard today that we would be opposed to and figuring out how this is a win-win for everybody and to make sure it is a good resource.

“I don’t want us to walk away, and I mean if it is, then it is a much different conversation — is it the town doesn’t value the Pickle Festival or think we ought to be doing it? That is a very much different conversation.”