St Michaels, MD October 27, 2009 – The board of the St Michaels Food and Wine Festival LLC, which for the past eight years under the leadership of Executive Director Jon Mason, has brought thousands of guests to this picturesque town on the Chesapeake Bay, recently announced that the 2010 Festival has been cancelled. Mr. Mason cited financial restrictions as the cause for the cancellation.
Mr. Mason explained,” After the 2009 festival, a few things became apparent. Our major sponsor decided to redirect his funding in a different direction, thus leaving us with a considerable shortfall in funding a 2010 event. My decision to operate Town Dock Restaurant left us with no full time Executive Director to execute the festival in a way that would that would make us proud. And the decision of a dedicated volunteer who made all of the logistics possible led us to the conclusion that we just did not have the infrastructure and staff to pull off another festival for 2010. It is with great sadness that the board members came to this conclusion, but given our personal financial commitments to this event and the further potential for losses in moving forward we had no other alternative but to disband. I am sure you all appreciate our predicament and I hope you respect our decision”.
Over the years, the Committee members have worked countless hours to create an event with regional, national and local appeal to introduce visitors to our fantastic town while also raising over $100,000 for local charities. The Festival has highlighted the immense culinary talent that exists within St Michaels and the surrounding towns of Easton, Oxford and Tilghman Island. Guest Chefs and Winemakers have shared this event with visitors and locals alike and enjoyed the wonderful backdrop we provide. The support of our partner businesses and sponsors has been invaluable and greatly appreciated. Excellent weather and a great lineup of activities helped make the 2009 Festival one of our most successful, bringing over 2000 visitors to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, our host for the event.
It is our hope that we will be able to resurrect this fantastic and beneficial event in the future perhaps on a smaller scale. Any food and wine related events conducted in Spring 2010 or in the future, are not in any way related or indented to represent “The St Michaels Food and Wine festival” LLC and its members.
Please continue to check back at our website http://www.stmichaelsfoodandwinefestival.com for our future plans.
Posted on October 28th, 2009 by Tilghman Guy
Filed under: General
Easton / Newman Field, MD