Virginia Beach mayor Bobby Dyer made his opinion clear Tuesday to the Something in the Water organizers about their ongoing delays.
“Dude, this cannot be tolerated,” Dyer said to Robby Wells, executive producer of the Pharrell Williams-backed music festival, after the team failed to deliver a contract to the city by a Nov. 1 deadline.
“I’m pretty angry about this. I’m very angry about this,” Dyer said. “If they do not have this signed, sealed and delivered by close of business on Friday, [next] Tuesday I will be making a recommendation that we pull the plug and go in a different direction.”
The festival was originally scheduled for October. After organizers canceled it with less than a month’s notice, the city wanted assurance that the new dates — planned for April 2024 — would happen.
In early October, Wells promised the contract to council by Nov. 1 and said tickets would go on sale by the end of the year. The following week, council passed a resolution to include certain conditions in the sponsorship agreement, including the ability to replace the festival with a different event if organizers did not meet deadlines.
Wells said the mayor’s comments were “1,000% valid.” He took responsibility for the delay in finalizing a contract, saying he “naively” thought the process to update a previous contract would move swiftly. However, Williams’ legal team and other partners are still reviewing it, he said.
There are about five months and change left before the proposed dates for next year’s fest. The current festival agreement is expected to echo past agreements.
But the city needs a six-month planning window to organize logistics for a large-scale event like Something in the Water, said Nancy Helman, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
In 2023, the city set aside a $2 million tax incentive for the festival, and paid it just shy of $1 million in sponsorship funds. Personnel costs made up most of the city’s investment of in-kind services into the festival.
Dyer and council member David Hutcheson, who was fire chief in 2019 and helped coordinate public safety for the first fest, emphasized the complexity for city staff and the time needed for planning.
Council festival liaisons Amelia Ross-Hammond and Jennifer Rouse also expressed frustration, but seemed optimistic things could come together.
“I would love to see a wonderful festival put on because we know they can do it. They’ve done it before,” Rouse said. “The challenge is, how do we continue to maintain this working relationship without these metrics and these deadlines being met?”
Dyer was a little more wary: “We want it to work, but we’re not going to be played,” he said.
