Letter: Shuttle system planned for Mumford concert

Letter: Shuttle system planned for Mumford concert

John Regan
City of St Augustine

Dear Editor:

On September 13 and 14, 2013, the City of St. Augustine will become one of only five cities worldwide to host the “Gentlemen of the Road Stopover Tour” featuring Grammy Award winning United Kingdom band, Mumford & Sons.

This event, a two-day music festival taking place at Francis Field on West Castillo Drive downtown, has sold 25,000 tickets to people across the continental United States as well as several countries worldwide.

This unique event is more than just a music festival. It embraces the local community that hosts it with hopes of “giving back” as much as possible. Mumford & Sons state on the “Gentlemen of the Road” website “the stopover is a music festival that celebrates local people, food and culture…where everyone pitches in and everybody gets something back.”

The artists and organizers of the event are also very sensitive to the impact on the community and wish to ensure that there are systems in place to not only spur economic growth for the community, but protect the quality of life for the local residents.

Mumford & Sons first gained interest in St. Augustine after visiting the 450th website and learning more about St. Augustine and its amazing history.

Festival organizers and promoters, AC Entertainment, and band representatives reached out to the 450th staff and city officials, who then turned to the St. Augustine Amphitheatre to see what combined efforts could be put together to make this work.

After a brief visit from AC Entertainment and band representatives it was obvious that St. Augustine was one of the top choices for this unique event.

St. Augustine has garnered much increased attention lately, and tourism rates continue to grow at an exponential rate. To foster and sustain this growth, systems such as satellite parking and shuttling need to be put in place. The Gentlemen of the Road event is the perfect event to bring local organizations together to create such systems. The event is bringing 25,000 people who will require either a hotel stay or adequate parking and transportation to the event.

The shuttle system being proposed will use the Historic Area Visitor Information Center as a hub to shuttle concert goers to and from a satellite parking lot at the Northeast Florida Regional Airport, as well as to and from the St. Augustine beaches area.

The shuttle direct from the airport will ensure that concert goers have a place to park that is not disruptive to the community. The shuttle to the beaches will service the largest concentration of overnight concert goers.

The system being developed for this event will serve as the model for all major events moving forward. This event has come at the perfect time. St. Johns County tourism numbers are growing and our goal is to make this trend sustainable.

Based on the VCB Summer 2012 Survey, we have conservatively estimated an economic impact of $2,500,000 to $3,000,000.

For this system to work effectively and efficiently for this initial event, we are asking for the support of the TDC.

We are estimating that the parking, shuttling and event support will cost a total of $361,438. We anticipate revenue of $231,953. We are, therefore, asking for TDC support of$129,485 to ensure the success of this event.

If you would like to learn more about our plans for managing this exceptional opportunity, please attend the Tourist Development Council meeting on Monday afternoon or follow our progress on the https://sites.google.com/site/staugustine450/News/mumford-sons website.