Producing Large Arts Events in Orlando

Mark Baratelli hosted a two hour event at Rollins College which gathered together the people who organize large arts events in Orlando. Mark is planning to organize an Improv Festival and as the moderator he asked each of these people advice on how he might best organize his Festival.
The Organizers in the sketch are (Left to Right):
Jamie Donmoyer of the Orlando Puppet Festival
James Schoepflain of the Orlando Hispanic Film Festival
Beth Marshall of the Orlando Fringe Festival
Carol Moreland of the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival
Chris Blanc of the Florida Film Festival
John Carter of Nerdapaloosa
and Mark Baratelli
The line from Chris Blanc which best summarized how to set up a first attempt at a festival was:
“Keep it simple. small and centralized”.
I became interested in the comments of Beth Marshal when she started talking about the Lake Eola incident I had witnessed the day before. She spoke about the larger issues revolving around the incident. Beth and all the panelists had a heated discussion to hear it all head to The Daily City and listen the audio from the event.
Beth said, “There is one thing about how to get a permit with the city, that has its own set of problems, but it is really pretty much self explanatory. It is relatively inexpensive. It is not something that can be done quickly. I completely understand why this small group who was just doing this 20 minute thing, didn’t get a permit because they were just going to the park and dance, big deal.”
“The issue isn’t getting the permit as much as it is the logistical hassles. The problem is in the fine print, for example, if I have someone who decides they want to put a poster on a city light pole, that can’t happen, because there is some fine print prohibiting that. So the city will come and take a picture of the poster on the light pole and they send that to me and tell me, Beth, you have to do something about this poster on a light pole. So I walk and I take the poster down. Then I get an e-mail from the city that says, you need to do something about the tape on the light pole.”
“If the city wants us down here doing our events, if the city wants us to have a community presence that generates dollars that come out of market back into our community, then you have to make it easier for us to do it. Period end of story.”