Indie music lovers will have to wait another year for Uptown Live.

Organizers have decided to postpone the summer street festival until 2016, citing a time crunch as the reason.

article continues below

Anyone who wanted grant money from the city for a festival in 2015 had to get all the paperwork submitted by last October. A committee then made the final decisions on who would get what this past February.

But even after securing funding for the next three years, that four-month window to plan Uptown Live wasn’t big enough, according to Bart Slotman, president of the Uptown Business Association.

“You can knock on someone’s door in March or April looking for a sponsorship contribution, they may have some room in the budget, but it’s probably limited,” he told the Record. “So having certainty in March doesn’t really work when you’re trying to put on a big event in July or August. That’s too little time, so we decided to take a pause and work with the city to get the proper multi-year framework in place.”

Slotman said his team is looking at making Uptown Live a regional festival, possibly adding a couple more stages, including one specifically for New West talent, as well as doubling attendance to 50,000 or more.

“The city understands what we need for the event to grow, and they want to see it happen too,” he added. “It’s really looking positive. We’re getting good dialogue.”

At its July 13 meeting, city staff amended the grant process, which included making the online application form available to community organizations no later than mid-August. Another recommendation that passed was that council would be provided with a staff report at its first meeting in December so that applications can be notified of council’s decision prior to 2016. It was also decided that the city separate the festival permit and grant application process.

“This would allow applications to begin planning their events rather than wait for their grant applications to be approved,” read a city report. “Should the applicant not receive the desired grant, they can proceed with the event if they find other sources of funding.”

To further streamline things, city staff will be creating a manual for festival applicants, providing them with templates and checklists, such as the need to submit plans for traffic management and crowd control.

Uptown Live, which takes place at Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue, began in 2012. Some of the 2014 indie artists who hit the stage were Ben Rogers, Ash Grunwald, Pacifika and Headwater.

“I’m confident whatever they do will be awesome,” said Ruby Campbell, community projects coordinator with the city. “We’re really lucky that we have all these community groups that are working towards making this a really exciting city.”

Slotman, meanwhile, said he isn’t too worried about putting the event on hold.

“If you feature really good quality talent in a free event that’s a fun atmosphere, people will come to it.”