We greatly appreciate the dedication to our event from our community.
The staff of the Festival is grateful to you and your spirit in these trying times. To further explain our decision, let me outline it for you.
Blackberry is on a limited budget. Initial costs to put the Festival together before we sell one ticket: $4,500.00 for insurance $6,500.00 for advertising $10,000.00 for T-shirts $10,000.00 for the car Now, we have over $30k invested. This year we already have lost the ability to sell tickets to recoup the cost of the car and MAYBE give out scholarships.
We lost the Portland Swap Meet, the Oakland car show, and probably 2 other events that could have brought in around $2,500 to begin.
Times are going to get tougher. This virus is killing our economy, and that kills our ticket sales.
So, with no end to the governors order in sight, and before we are 30k in the hole, we cancelled. We don't have much of a choice.