Will SunFest return to West Palm Beach? First, ‘something's got to change,' director says
When SunFest announced in November that it was canceling its 2025 festival on West Palm Beach's downtown waterfront, the organization said it was 'just taking some time to create something new and fresh.'
Now, SunFest's director says he is not in a hurry to try to resurrect the beloved musical festival.
After years of financial struggles, the organization plans to ease its way back by managing smaller live events as it mulls how and whether to produce its signature event once more.
'We're really trying to figure out the next steps as an organization,' said Dan Goode, the executive director. 'We're focusing more on event management and trying to be relevant in the community.'
SunFest of Palm Beach County, the nonprofit that produced the county's largest music festival for 42 years, this year branched out by taking over management of Lake Worth Beach's Street Painting Festival, for a fee of $271,000.
If and when the group tries to bring back SunFest, it plans to do so with a different approach. The popular festival fell into financial problems in recent years, raising prices to hire top-tier musical acts as attendance plummeted.
'I don't think SunFest will come back as it was,' Goode said. 'Something's got to change.'
That change could come as an attempt to reembrace the festival's roots as a community event. Goode said that in SunFest's final years, organizers were trying to pivot it back in that direction, but it was not an easy transition.
'We really tried to do a lot of things differently and get back to the community aspect of the event,' he said.
'In our minds we were making these big changes in how we were booking and programming, and we didn't really see any movement,' he said. 'We didn't see much of a change.'
The event will be missed by the county's tourism and business communities, which say it provided a significant economic boost. Even in its last, diminished year of operation, the festival was estimated to produce $10 million in economic impact, according to the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County.
"For more than 40 years, SunFest was a beloved tradition here in the Palm Beaches,' Cultural Council President Dave Lawrence said in a statement. 'We saw firsthand how this festival brought both visitors and residents together through the power of music and the arts.'
But residents may not have to wait on SunFest to see live music festivals again on West Palm Beach's downtown waterfront.
SunFest's beginnings: Debut in 1983 was a free 10-day festival with a high-wire act
West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James said the city is in conversations with other event producers about the possibilities of bringing in new events to pick up where SunFest left off.
'Whether they'll come back or not I don't know,' James said. 'But I am hearing from other smaller festivals that are interested in perhaps, not necessarily filling the void but seeing West Palm Beach as an attractive option. I believe that there will be an alternative to SunFest at some point.'
James said SunFest had been a valuable contributor to the city's downtown for decades, but in recent years the event had 'reached the end of their attraction in the city.'
'It didn't have the same kind of magical appeal that SunFest used to have, in my mind,' he said.
But that, he said, opens the door for new possibilities.
'I am optimistic that there will be something new, something fresh — maybe a few things fresh — to give us an opportunity to imagine what live entertainment could be on our waterfront and see if there are some new players who are interested in doing something here,' James said. 'I know of at least a couple who have approached us about doing some things.'
More: SunFest is gone. Now a free downtown music festival aims to 'fill that void'
Paul Jamieson, who served as SunFest's executive director for 17 years before retiring in 2023, said that as the cost of hiring top-tier musical acts rose, the festival found itself in 'a spiral that many older-model festivals find themselves in.'
'The cost of goods exceeded the customers' willingness to pay,' he said.
But he said that Goode, who has worked for SunFest for 30 years, was the person to remake the festival as a financially viable contemporary event.
'If anybody can do it, he can do it,' he said, 'and there are a lot of dedicated people who are heartbroken that SunFest isn't happening.'
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Will SunFest return to West Palm? Or will other events replace it?
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