No written contract between Grand Falls-Windsor and Salmon Fest promoter

The Grand Falls-Windsor town council did not draw up a new contract with the promoter of the 2015 Salmon Festival, even though it was dealing with only one company from a consortium it had parted ways with.

• Grand Falls-Windsor council voted to keep Salmon Fest, despite warnings in May about losses
• 'End of an era' for mega-concert Salmon Festival, after $1.1M loss in 2 years

The chair of the festival, Darren Finn, said Friday that the town had a falling out with the group that promoted the concert since 2011.

"Some members of the partnership were having discussions with other venues in Newfoundland and Labradorto host another concert," said Finn, referring toa differentconcert that would compete with Salmon Festival.

So the town annulled the 2011 contract, but went on to use its language as a guideline for dealing with the remaining partner;Meryl Stewart of RTC Entertainment.

"That contract from 2011 is the contract that we followed, said Finn.

"It outlined a"70-30 split, coveredwho's responsible for what expensesand how the profits, if any, would be shared."

Followed 'past practices'

Finn said the agreement for that was negotiated in a council committee room, witnessed by the promoter and council, and recorded in council minutes.

"While Idid encourage that new contract language be drafted, council did agreein February they were satisfied with carrying on with the existing contract language from2011,and I had to move on," said Finn.

He said that did not affect the materialoutcome of the money-losing 2015 show.

Stewart, the remaining promoter, saidhe and the town had a "great working relationship."

"We had contracts in the past and were going to sort of follow the same guidelines as that," he said."But as far as saying therewas an original contract for 2015, that was not there."

Both sides lost

He says his company lost money on the 2105 concert, but would not say how much.

"With the town, they might have to reveal that because it's public knowledge and they have to answer to the town, but as far as the personal aspect of my business, that's not something I divulge to people and most people can respect that," said Stewart.

Documents obtained by CBC show minutes of a May 12 meeting where Stewart told the festival planning committee that he could not afford to lose more than the $80,000 he had already invested.

He advised the town to cancel and cut its losses.

If council had done that in May, it would have been on the hook for $350,000 instead of the $607,870 it lost by going ahead with the July event.

Stewartsaid there is no legal dispute over how how the losses should be shared, although a memo from the festival committee in September indicated there was an issue with money paid to bring headliner JohnFogertyin from the United States.

Scaling back

As for regrets, Finn saidthe four-to-three vote in May to continue on with this year's Salmon Festival "wasn't an unreasonable position...but it did come with a risk."

Now, he said the community celebrations will continue on a smaller scale.

"They wanted to continue with the show, and that was their right to do so," said Stewart. "We all did our best to make it work."

Stewart said Salmon Festival was handicapped by a lack of infrastructure, long travel timesand a small population base.

"Make no mistake about it," he said."The Avalon Peninsula is in the game now with music and they are certainly better equipped with the population in their area and hotels and all that."