Trail of Lights off 2nd year in a row

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A lack of funding and sponsorship is turning the lights off on the city's 46-year-old Trail of Lights festival.

"We're dissappointed that the fundraising just wasn't there this year due to budgets and that sort of thing," said Amy Vercruysse, with BrightBlue Marketing.

The group was the sole bidder of the contract with the City of Austin to run the event for the next four years. BrightBlue Marketing was only awarded the contract in August, giving them only a few months to raise the $250,000 needed by November 2nd to get the ball rolling.

"The more time you have, the better," she said.

Fencing and build-out was scheduled to start Wednesday, but organizers said they were forced to nix the $1 million project altogether because there was just not enough money to pay initial costs. Several sponsors had already donated about $78,000, but the five sponsors that were going to donate the rest before the deadline just couldn't because of budget constraints.

"We can't blame the sponsors either. We had sponsors come through," Vercruysse said.

Current sponsors have the option of getting their money back, or keeping the money with organizers to save towards next year's 'trail of lights,' which organizers are confident will happen.

"The longer time you have to prepare for something like this, the better success it will be. So we're wanting sponsors to factor us in their budgets for 2012," Vercruysse said.

"The return of Trail of Lights in 2011 depended on community and business sponsorship contributions to make the event possible," read a press release sent Wednesday. "Despite considerable effort by the event's sponsorship and management team, a pre-event milestone to reach $250,000 in cash contributions prior to Nov. 2 has not been achieved."

Parks and Recreation spokesman Victor Ovalle said the deadline was written into the contract organizers had with the city. Fundraising benchmarks needed to be met at certain times in order for the Trail of Lights to happen.

Vercruysse and Trail of Lights Co-Producer Candace Miller said the difficult economy is the reason for the funding shortfall.

"With months of hard work reaching out to thousands of business leaders in Austin, an enormous effort went into procuring sponsors to fund the event this year," they said in the release. "In the end, it came down to difficult economic circumstances and budgets that were tapped."

• Read the story as it was first reported Wednesday in Community Impact Newspaper.

Penny Martin has lived in Austin since college, raising her children and now watching her grandson Max grow up. The Trail of Lights was a holiday family tradition for Martin and her family.

"I was really glad when they stopped letting cars go through," Martin said. "Because one year I think we spent about three hours in the car waiting for our turn to go through the trail and with a car full of children, that's not too great."

But Max won't get to see the lights this year.

"It's hard to give up traditions like that," Martin added.

Organizers say they raised $78,000, well short of the $250,000 they needed by Wednesday to get the event off the ground.

That's something Kay Munoz said she understands but wishes was different for her granddaughter, Kate.

"Everybody's having a hard time. Its obvious," Munoz said. "To me this is real important, they have a big music thing going on all the time and I know it makes them a lot of money but come on, do this for the kids."

Sponsors who had committed to the event

• Seton Healthcare Family
• H-E-B
• ImageCraft Exhibits
• Community Impact News
• Hotze Runkle Law Firm
• Discount Electronics
• Electric Monkey
• As Such Communications
• Tech Ranch
• the Kucera Companies
• dozens of contributions from local small businesses and individuals
   

Will the Zilker Tree and other holiday events still be around?

Yes, the 155-foot Zilker Holiday Tree is not affected. Crews worked to put up the intricately bulbed tree on Tuesday.

Austin Energy crews will hang 3,159 yellow, red, green and blue bulbs on 39 streamers from the top of Moonlight Tower in Zilker Park to form the annual holiday tree for the 45th consecutive year.

The tree can be seen for miles as it signals the start of the holiday season when it is lit the first Sunday in December at 6 p.m. and stays lit until midnight every night until the end of the year.

In addition to the tree, Austin HolidayFest 2011 is also around this holiday season. Organizers said it will provide a free, family-friendly holiday event in December.

It will run from Dec. 4 to Dec. 11 at Zilker Park, kicking off with the tree lighting. Austin HolidayFest will feature the annual Holiday Tree lighting custom, along with Santa's House and food and novelty vendors.

Cash-strapped Trail of Lights

Following the event’s 2010 cancellation, the popular holiday tradition was slated to return to Zilker Park from Dec. 9 to Dec. 18 with new additions for Austin families.

The festival was expected to make