Booth fees dispute threatens festival.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

A successful community festival staged by the Maude Kerns Arts Center and Lane County's wineries for the past 21 years appears to have turned into a battle between the art and the vineyards.

First called "Art in the Vineyard," the festival began as a small event in Elmira in 1984 to help bolster the finances of the Eugene nonprofit art center and, at the same time, feature some of the county's world-class wines. The popular venture quickly moved to Eugene's Alton Baker Park the next year, changing its name to "Art and the Vineyard" and establishing itself as a four-day event of art, wine and music that annually draws about 25,000.

But whether some of your favorite wineries - from Chateau Lorane to King Estate to Secret House - will be there this July 4 weekend is yet to be decided.

Several big-name wineries are considering pulling out this year over a dispute about booth fees and alcohol sales. Some wineries say they're fed up with what they perceive as being taken advantage of and treated like second-class citizens by the center and the events company managing the festival, Big Green Events.

"Unless we can negotiate something, most of us are going to walk away," says Linde Kester, owner of the Chateau Lorane winery. "It's a shame that it's come to this, but I just think they're being un- reasonable."

Both sides are scheduled to meet again Friday to try to strike a deal.

In previous years, the wineries have been charged a booth fee that now stands at $650 and is the highest of any booth fee they pay at any of the festivals they attend in the state, the wineries say. This year, however, Maude Kerns and Big Green Events are asking for a change: either the $650 booth fee or 20 percent of the wineries' gross alcohol sales, whichever is greater.

Adding to the confusing mix of grape and groan is the fact that Patti Chappel of Secret House Vineyards in Veneta has applied with the state to secure both "Art and the Vineyard" and "Art in the Vineyard" as assumed business names for the Wineries of Lane County.

No one has ever owned the name, or trademarked it, since Eugene wine expert Bob Sogge launched the event with fellow Rotarians to benefit Maude Kerns. And the arts center and the wineries always have been equal partners in the event, which provides about 40 percent of Maude Kerns' operating budget, says Karen Pavelec, the art center's executive director.

"In the back of my mind, I'm just wondering if (securing the name) would be helpful for the wineries," Chappel says. `And I want something positive to come of this, so it's really a `nothing' right now.'

But Chappel clearly is peeved about this year's proposal and unsure whether Secret House will participate. There's a stereotypical mind-set that wineries make a killing at festivals like Art and the Vineyard, she says.

`They think we're `Falcon Crest' out here,' she says. `But most of us are just silly farmers. I'd go (to the event) just because I'm a supporter of the arts. But I don't feel good about it when I feel I'm being taken advantage of, and that's what this feels like."

Members of the 15 wineries that make up the Wineries of Lane County say they have never been asked to give a percentage of their alcohol sales at any event where they've served their products. And several question its legality.

The legal issue gets tricky because Maude Kerns does not have an Oregon Liquor Control Commission liquor license. But Pete O'Rourke, regional manager for the OLCC office in Eugene, said it would be legal for an organization to require a percentage of sales if both parties agree and a contract is signed, and the party taking the percentage doesn't have any interest with or control over the winery.

Bob Jensen, who runs Big Green Events, the company that stepped in to save this year's Eugene Celebration, said the new requirement is just a more fair way of doing business.

"When you win, both parties win," he says. "When you lose, you share the loss."

Mike Fix, owner of RainSong Vineyards in Cheshire, doesn't agree. If the weather is bad and the turnout is low, the wineries are still paying the $650 booth fee, no matter how much wine they sell, Fix said.

"If they're sharing the risk, then they're partnering, and the liquor licenses are very specific about silent partners," he says. `Maude Kerns is playing `tough guy' with something that is a community event.'

The arts center and wineries are still in negotiations, Pavelec says, and she knows of no winery that has stepped forward to say it isn't attending.

"We're basically trying to negotiate with all of the different areas in the event and create a fair balance," she says. "We're trying to think outside the box."

The event grows every year, Pavelec says, and more food vendors, artists and musical acts from across the country want to participate.

"We're trying to grow the event so it grows into the premier art event in the Willamette Valley," she says.

Colleen Thomas, president of Maude Kerns' board of directors, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

As a comparison, the Newport Wine & Seafood Festival held on the Oregon Coast every February does not take a percentage of alcohol sales from wine vendors, says Colleen Cockrell of the Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce. Instead, the wine vendors, which have included several from Lane County, pay a booth fee of between $450 and $525, depending on the size of the booth. The chamber has never considered taking a percentage of the wineries' sales, she says.

"I think our festival is successful enough that we haven't thought about that," Cockrell says. "The wineries promote the state and bring people back. And we sell their wines in our stores, too. We have a real good relationship with our wineries."

Jensen says the practice of taking a percentage of alcohol sales at events like Art and the Vineyard is commonplace and he plans to do the same with all vendors at the Eugene Celebration this fall. It's no different than a bar paying a percentage of sales to a landlord, he says.

"If the wineries have more success, it's an opportunity for them to contribute more to the event," Jensen says.

Sogge fondly remembers that first "Art in the Vineyard" at Forgeron Vineyards in Elmira and how all the art was housed in one tent. A lot has changed since then, he says.

"The whole purpose was to do something good for the community, and Maude Kerns is good for the community," he says. "Now, it's being used for greed. It started out with a charity motive, and now it's a profit motive."

CAPTION(S):

Chateau Lorane's Linde Kester: "It's a shame ... it's come to this."