Decision yet to be made on whether One Spark will return in 2017

[Murder_me_Rachel]

http://jacksonville.com/business/2016-09-29/decision-yet-be-made-whether-one-spark-will-return-2017

[Snufflee]

It is also typical of this city, look at SXSW, it took years to grow and cultivate into what it is today.. One Spark had that chance but no one has the gumption to nurture the event and allow it to go through its ebbs and flows. It is a shame, potential was there greed and mismanagement destroyed it. 

[thelakelander]

^Who pays for SXSW? The major issue I see with One Spark is funding. It required Rummell to spend millions out of his own pocket to keep it afloat annually. I can't blame the guy for not wanting to light his own money on fire. Keep that cash and dump it into getting The District off the ground.

[Tacachale]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the One Spark concept. ArtPrize in Grand Rapids is a similar model focused only on art, and it's done great. And the street party section of One Spark was obviously a major success in drawing crowds to Downtown. Their biggest mistakes were the handling of the prizes (they were too big and distributed to all participants in too-small amounts) and not coming up with a revenue source beyond Rummell's largess. For instance, if they'd decided to only distribute $200k (ArtPrize's reward amount) to the top competitors rather than giving away $2 million, they'd still be in the red. Plus it would be much easier to attract high level talent as well as sponsors so that Rummell wouldn't have to keep pumping money into it.

Either way, they did prove that Jacksonville will come out in droves to support big events downtown. With some kind of revenue stream, the model could work. I hope the founders are moving in that direction, instead of just cancelling the whole thing.

[bill]

Take away the food trucks, booze and live music and it was actually really, really lame.

LOL completely accurate. Take away the food, booze and 40 bazillion attendees then you have an average day in jville 

[Adam White]

An adult "Invention Convention" (like I had in 1st grade) would never evolve into SXSW.

That is possibly the funniest thing I've read on Metro Jacksonville.

[Snufflee]

The comparison of One spark to SXSW wasn't meant as an apples to apples comparison but more along the lines that SXSW did not start off as an uber successful event that with in 3 years was a national event. It took time patience and commitment to grow and find those sponsors.

[Tacachale]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the One Spark concept. ArtPrize in Grand Rapids is a similar model focused only on art, and it's done great. And the street party section of One Spark was obviously a major success in drawing crowds to Downtown. Their biggest mistakes were the handling of the prizes (they were too big and distributed to all participants in too-small amounts) and not coming up with a revenue source beyond Rummell's largess. For instance, if they'd decided to only distribute $200k (ArtPrize's reward amount) to the top competitors rather than giving away $2 million, they'd still be in the red. Plus it would be much easier to attract high level talent as well as sponsors so that Rummell wouldn't have to keep pumping money into it.

Either way, they did prove that Jacksonville will come out in droves to support big events downtown. With some kind of revenue stream, the model could work. I hope the founders are moving in that direction, instead of just cancelling the whole thing.

No, their biggest mistake was thinking there's a market for "crowd funding" and there were enough underfunded amazing inventions to sustain something like this.  There isn't.  99.5% of all the so-called creators were terrrrrrrrrible. And they stretched the definition of what a "creator" is such that all these lame, waste of time ideas got in there.  There just arent that many people with world-changing ideas, and where there are, they aren't paying to come to Jax to try and raise $10K-- this whole concept was completely unnecessary.  I realize "start-ups" and "tech" are fetishized in popular culture right now and that certain people in Jacksonville wanted to feel like they were part of this trend too ("oooooh, me too, me too! i want to be a part! Disruption! Funding! Buzzwords!"), but it was a concept that didn't have any demand.  Literally no one needed this festival, whereas SXSW, because it's music, does have a demand, and it will continue to have a demand because people want to find cool new music.  And, much as One Spark devotees would love you think it is anything similar to Art Prize or SXSW, it isn't.  That's like saying Folio  and Crime and Punishment are the same because they are both the written word.

Well, you're predisposed to think things are "terrrrrrrrrible". I don't disagree that the idea had apparently fatal flaws from the start. But there's really nothing about the concept of having a big festival where large cash prizes are distributed that inherently doesn't work. From the beginning, One Spark had no problem drawing competitors even with limited prizes, and they had no trouble drawing crowds even with limited competitors. At $10k for the top prizes, true, no one's coming from out of town. But if the top prizes had been $50k, $100k, $200k, they would have attracted more serious competitors. And even if the model couldn't be made to work for start ups, there's no reason it couldn't have shifted to things like art or music that can and do work.

But anyway, obviously there's a market for a big outdoor festival in Downtown Jax. Something that has a way to draw revenue and sponsors could probably be sustainable before too long, as happened with ArtPrize. I guess it remains to be seen whether local financiers have an appetite for that.

The comparison of One spark to SXSW wasn't meant as an apples to apples comparison but more along the lines that SXSW did not start off as an uber successful event that with in 3 years was a national event. It took time patience and commitment to grow and find those sponsors.

Yeah, this is true. I think SXSW actually started with a smaller budget than One Spark did. But music festivals are always going to be a big draw and revenue opportunity, especially when you have people who know how to pick great acts (and not pay the musicians).