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City Stages Founder Talks About Festival Finances
McMillan referred all questions concerning possible bankruptcy, bounced checks and money owed to vendors to his attorney. But he did say the festival was more than half a million dollars in debt going into last weekend and it only got worse.
Sources at the Farley Building say the City Stages office was cleared out last Friday before the festival.
But a week later, McMillan arrived at the building and discussed finances.
"Past debt due to lack of attendance, the heat, the economy this year all combined made it [the cancellation of City Stages] the only wise decision," he said.
McMillan says City Stages was 550 thousand dollars in debt from previous years. This year another 450 thousand was added due to a shortfall of 70 thousand in liquor sales and 255 thousand in tickets.
But when asked about the more than 100 thousand owed to vendors...
"I would have to defer any other questions to Mike Pennington at Bradley Arant," he said.
Two production companies responsible for staging and lighting say they had concerns.
"There was a lot of, 'hey don't worry, everything is going to be ok.' And there was that false sense of security," said Chris Wade, business manager for Proshow System, during a phone call from the Memphis, TN office. The company also has an office in Birmingham.
Wade says the company got a certified check for last year's payment before the festival started. But checks worth 30 thousand dollars for this year bounced.
"We're having meetings right now looking about possible employee layoffs, not to mention anything that was paid out of our accounts for monies received from the festival," said Wade.
And the owner of Chevalier Productions in Oxford, AL says his check for eight thousand bounced.
"It's a hit, a hard hit being we already paid for my staff, for trucking," said John Chevalier, owner of Chevalier Productions.
At this point, there may be only one option.... legal action.
"I've left him a message. It's all you can do. no one answers the phone," said Chevalier.
Calls to Pennington were not returned.
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