Grant Park Music Fest Dumps Gift Horse
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Grant Park Music Festival executive director James Palermo says that the festival simply needed more money than the society was capable of raising. “We are appreciative of their contributions over the years, but it wasn’t enough for the sustained growth of the festival,” he says, claiming that the society never contributed more than around $150,000 annually for artistic programming. By bringing the festival’s fund-raising in house, Palermo says he hopes to raise $350,000 for the 1996 festival–$185,000 of that from government and foundation sources and the remainder from corporate sponsorships.
The Park District adminis-tration has also been at odds with the society over the children’s outreach program. Palermo says it “didn’t go far enough for us.”
Of course even Madigan acknowledges, “It’s the Park District’s festival. They can do what they want.” Festival director Palermo says his staff is in the process of deciding how to best carry on the membership program the society created and operated.
Cullen maintains the problem was not the neighbors, but a lack of space on the marquee. “That space is reserved for the theater’s principal tenant,” he explains. But Cullen will now have plenty of space on the marquee after March 10. His next confirmed tenant is the Splinter Group, which plans to open its six-week “Buckets o’ Beckett” marathon in late April.
