Budget for The Fruit Festival

Budget Breakdown for the WFF 2013

(Budget last updated October 20 2012)

In keeping with our pledge of being a nonprofit event, we want to do our best to explain costs and budgetary details to all attendees.  This event is a co-op of sorts, where all paying attendees deserve to know and where their money is being spent.  The Festival administrators and Board of Governors are doing everything we can to work wisely and efficiently, but as with any new organization this can take time!

Below are further details outlining how and why we've developed the above budget.  If (you are a paying attendee for the upcoming festival) we are happy to hear your suggestions or answer concerns as we have time to do so.  Please email as necessary.

Camp Walden:

Here’s why we chose Camp Walden over other options and why the cost is fair and worth the money:The administrators reviewed literally dozens of options before we chose Camp Walden for The Woodstock Fruit Festival.  We considered locations in California, Florida, Thailand, Australia, Europe and more.  We considered various times of the year for the event as well.

-Location:
Depending on how you look at it, upstate New York is a great compromise meeting destination.  It’s within driving distance to many major cities that have large transportation hubs.  Nearly a 50 million people live within an 8 hour drive to Camp Walden.  It’s close to where the event administrative staff live, so on-sight planning could be managed well.

-Produce Selection, Price and Availability:
There are many local farms within closer proximity of Camp Walden in  New York and Pennsylvania with August being peak harvesting season.
The New York City wholesale produce selection and diversity is at its peak in late summer, with prices usually being their lowest of the year in August.

-Waterfront:
We saw a lot of places that had waterfront, but none had the infrastructure and offerings of Camp Walden's waterfront.  They literally have a water-park!

-Climate, Time of Year:
The climate of the southern Adirondack mountains in late August is idea 75’-80’s during the day and 60’s at night.  The water temperature of the lake will be its warmest in late August (80F~)

Initially we wanted to hold the event in early to mid-August so college bound students could attend before classes start at the end of August. But all summer camps are in session until the 3^rd week of August and no other options were available.  So we apologize and regret the unfortunate situation that many of our college bound attendees face in missing classes or our festival.

-Nature:
The southern Adirondack mountains are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world.  The area is rich in history and geology.  It’s a wonderful peaceful place to relax and enjoy pristine air, water and nature together.

-Activities and Amenities:
Camp Walden has tremendous offerings from Ropes and Challenge Courses, Arts and Crafts, Sports and Fitness, Mt. Bikes, Theater, Movie Theater, Hiking, Waterfront, HUGE indoor meeting spaces, and more.  There is so much to do, and it’s all included and open to everyone.

-Size + Accommodations:
Camp Walden has indoor housing (beds) for 675 people, and a lot more space for campers!  Few of the other camps that we reviewed had capacity for so many people.  This allows our event to grow well in the future and give people the extra indoor living quarters needed to make everyone comfortable.

-Staffing:

Staffing reliable individuals to assist in running our event is a very big job.  We attempted to accept a lot of work exchange attendees in 2012 and it didn't work out well for anyone.  Many of the work exchange never showed up (!), which left a bigger load on too few work exchange that did show up.  It also required a huge amount of time for our limited staff to organize work exchange volunteers.

For 2013 we've decided that we need the professional staff that is already working at Camp Walden to work for our festival. This adds more expenses, but also free's up time for our administrators to focus on filling more beds with paying attendees and improve the overall experience for all festival participants.

Having paid and reliable staff to care for all needs related to cleaning, garbage, housekeeping, child care, waterfront, facility activities ensures a sustainable successful event and reputation.

-Camp Owners:

Camp Walden offered our event a competitive price for the use of their entire facility. Mark and Lauren Bernstein (owners of the camp) have been extremely accommodating and easy to work with, they are partners in making our event the best experience ever.

The value our event is receiving from Camp Walden is 2^nd to none in all other options we considered.

-Staff & Presenters
-Presenters Travel Expenses $20,000
-Contractual Presenter Liabilities $10,000
-Full & Part Time Admin Staff $73,000
-Other Support Staff $2,000

Total:  $105,000

There are currently 3 people that work full or part time for the festival at various times during the year. (Note: event founder and sponsor Michael Arnstein has not drawn any paid income from the festival, or intends to).  These people work exceptionally hard and need to be compensated for their time and dedication to the event.

Further various presenters at the festival rely on income to support their full or part time occupation in our movement.  Most travel from all over the country or world to attend this event and need basic costs covered so that they can present and educate our attendees.

-Food and kitchen supplies
-Food $166,000
-Refrigerated Truck Rent (2 trucks) $4,000
-Kitchen Supplies $3,000
-Portable Toilets (12 toilets) $1,500

Total: $174,500

High quality fruits and vegetables are expensive!  We try our best to source the highest quality and fair value.  Our priority is to have an abundance while also maintaining efficiency, it's a tough balance!  The funding we've set aside is based on what we've spent in the prior years based on the projected number of attendees. 

-Website Maintenance & Development
-Ning Network maintenance $600
-Web-design $2,400
-Domain Hosting $13

Total: $3,013

Our website is how we efficiently communicate with our community.  Fixed costs to maintain the website at a high quality with reliable staff is a fair value for what it provides.

-Marketing Costs
-Festival Souvenirs/Give Aways $10,000
-Other Marketing $10,000
-Filming & Production Costs $16,000
-Other filming costs $2,000

Total: $43,200.

Marketing/advertising/documentation media, it all matters!  We all have some level of responsibility to spread the word of health to others, as someone did for us.  Quality and reliability don't come cheap.

-Speakers Sponsorship Liabilities(as of 10/12/2012) $5,200

Our presenters work for a living in our movement, and your sponsorship selection goes to fund their attendance and livelihoods.   As attendees sign up and select a Pioneer to sponsor this liability will increase.  We are passing along the funds to the people who have helped you in your health and wellness journey.

-Miscellaneous Festival Supplies and Expenses
-Bedding Supplies $10,000
-Other Misc. Expenses $12,000
-SurveyMonkey $200

Total: $22,200.

Bedding and linens for each attendee are necessary, as we don't believe requiring people to bring blankets and sheets is feasible, especially for people traveling by air.  

Other festival expenses are greatly varied from kids activity needs to wireless routers and computer/admin needs during the festival.

-Paypal & Bank fees(as of 10/01/2012) $515

Please pay by check so we can save on Paypal fees!

-Event Insurance$4,500

Nothing much we can do about this.  

-Bus Shuttle from/to NYC and Albany$12,000

Bus service from NYC and Albany was very popular and appreciated by attendees in 2012.  The 12,000. is an amount that we hope will be recouped equally by paid bus ticket purchases through the festival.

-LE FRUIT Restaurant$10,000

The fine dining restaurant was extremely popular in 2012, and we hope that related costs for professional staff, special produce, decorations and all catering needs for the restaurant infrastructure will be recouped in dinner sales during the event.

-Loans for past current and future event obligations:$118,000.

The festival has interest free loans to repay in the amount of approximately $70,000.  As well the festival needs to have savings for security deposits and future event liabilities. Having no savings is irresponsible and something we don't like!  

Budget Breakdown for the WFF 2012

(Budget last updated September 19 2012)