The Denton Arts & Jazz Festival will look different this year as festival organizers grapple with a diminished budget. Increased expenses and the general decline in sponsorships since the emergence of COVID-19 have caused the Denton Festival Foundation to operate in the red for the past three years with losses totaling in the hundreds of thousands. Kevin Lechler, executive director of the foundation, which produces the festival, said Arts & Jazz Fest will still be free, but they might have to cut the number of stages to further reduce costs.
Lechler said organizers still haven’t finalized the plans for the coming year. “I just don't think people really understand how much it costs to have this event,” Lechler said. “Our budget is almost $600,000 a year — we have raised that every year, except for the last three.
We have steadily lost $100,000, $94,000 and about $48,000. So that ate up all of our reserves. The board was like, ‘You know what? We can't do this any more because we have no more reserves,’ so now we're tailoring back to match the donations that we take in.
” Producing a free event is challenging for a nonprofit organization. In the past three years, organizers have faced numerous financial setbacks, including several major sponsors either discontinuing or greatly reducing their support, while expenses dramatically increased. Lechler said two of the biggest setbacks occurred when the University of North Texas and Wells Fargo discontinued their sponsor.
