DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — Bringing Rock the South to Decatur will cost the city $5 million over the next five years, but a city council member said he expects Decatur to profit as much as $20 million each year the festival is held in the River City.
At a special-called meeting on Thursday, the city council finalized its deal with Rock the South.
“As a part of this contract, they guarantee 15,000 tickets per day over a three-day concert,” said Decatur City Council Member Kyle Pike. “So obviously, there’s a lot of sales tax revenue from that, as well as the sales of things at the event.”
In addition, Pike told News 19 there are provisions built into the agreement that protect the city’s investment.
“It’s requiring them to have 7000 parking spots on site,” Pike said. “We’ll split parking fees 50%. There will be a fee for each campsite. They’ve committed to 350 campsites, I believe, on site.”
During Thursday’s meeting, a Decatur resident told the council he has concerns about safety at the event. Pike said he has been impressed by the preparations the Rock the South team has made so far.
“I know they’ve had a lot of meetings already with local law enforcement,” Pike said. “They have prior law enforcement officers on their payroll that help to kind of coordinate a lot of that with the local agencies and with the Rock the South team.”
As a part of their agreement with the city, Rock the South will put $50,000 toward infrastructure on the property they purchased in Decatur.
“We don’t want to make this just a three-day piece of property,” said Nathan Baugh, the CEO of Peachtree Entertainment, which is the company behind Rock the South. “Obviously, there’s other events that we can put on, but there’s also other events that they can rent the facility.”
Several families live near the 150-acre piece of land off Gordon Terry Parkway, and during the festival, they will be impacted by loud music and a lot of traffic. Baugh said he hopes to talk to these people ahead of the festival.
“We want to hear those concerns, just like we did in Cullman when we first moved to that property,” Baugh said. “It became something that they looked forward to. We heard stories and still hear them, that people pay their mortgages off of parking cars for Rock the South.”
Baugh said his team plans to break ground on the land in January.
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