BCE chosen to run Boulder Creek Festival

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It’s official.

Boulder Creek Events (BCE) will be running the Boulder Creek Festival again next spring.
City and BCE officials issued a joint press release on Friday announcing that the organization had won the bid to operate the festival through 2014.

The two parties had been in negotiations for more than a month. On Sept. 29, city officials told Boulder Weekly that the two sides had agreed on an Oct. 28 deadline to complete the negotiations.

Boulder Creek Events (BCE) has traditionally run the Memorial Day weekend event, but the company has been in a dispute with the city for years about who actually owns the festival.

According to the release, contract highlights include enhancing zero waste measures, increasing the use of local food vendors and locally grown food products, increasing protection for the use of city parkland, reducing the festival’s carbon foot print, increasing cost recovery for the City of Boulder, and creating a reinvestment fund that will be used to enhance the festival offerings each year.

“This new contract provides goals that the city desired for the Festival, including improved overall sustainability, enhancement of the event to reflect the important use of local food vendors and a commitment to continually improve the offerings to the public,” City Manager Jane Brautigam said in the release.

Chris Dailey, executive director of Boulder Creek Events, added, “We appreciate all of the hard work that both Boulder Creek Events and the City of Boulder put in to resolving the issues on the table. We are looking forward to continuing what we have been doing since 1998 — managing and producing Boulder County’s favorite community event.”

The other companies bidding to manage the festival were DBC Events and Colorado Events. The request for proposals was issued on May 27, and bids were due June 30.