Loss of festival to affect revenue

After 15 years in Westwood, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is moving to a new location at crosstown rival USC’s campus, to the dismay of many Bruins.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times announced that it would move its famous Festival of Books away from the Westwood campus, the event’s home since its beginning in 1996.

While the move has prompted mixed reactions from Angelenos, the UCLA community has been shocked at the loss of one of its biggest events of the year.

“It was a good event for us, and the added amount of people gave us a boost in revenue,” said Bob Williams, executive director of Associated Students UCLA, which worked the festival earlier this year to provide concessions and set up assistance. “There’s no specific plans going forward, and we don’t know if any events that big are going to come around.”

Without the festival, ASUCLA will take a strong hit because it will lose out on a revenue of $75,000-$100,000, which it made at the event last year, Williams said.

There is no word on what events will fill the void in the schedule that weekend, or whether it will be a big event the size of the Festival of Books or many smaller events spread out.

“It’s still a bit of a surprise to everyone. We certainly will be looking for another event, but at this point we don’t have anything yet,” said Jack Raab, director of the UCLA Events Office.

The announcement came while UCLA and the Los Angeles Times were engaged in negotiations for the 2011 festival. Some people were not surprised by the announcement.

“We had been working on negotiations this year and had clearly expressed that we wanted to keep the festival here,” said Lawrence Lokman, associate vice chancellor for university community. “But they had expressed the desire to increase their revenue, and so we weren’t totally surprised when the announcement came.”

According to a statement by the Los Angeles Times, the move to USC allows for greater festival attendance because of its centrality in the city, its proximity to public transportation, greater amount of parking facilities and the campus’s newly enhanced facilities.

UCLA had already made adjustments for the newspaper to keep the festival in Westwood, such as allowing more room for sponsors’ concession stands, even though it hurt ASUCLA revenues, Lokman said.

Because UCLA spent $176,000 on services and funding for the festival earlier this year, the university could not keep up with the growing desire of the newspaper to increase its revenue, at least not without a multiyear commitment, Lokman said.

Lokman added that UCLA had tried to get the Los Angeles Times to commit to a multiyear contract that would keep the festival in Westwood for several years but had been rejected. Instead, the contract had been negotiated on a year-to-year basis.

About 140,000 people attended the event in April, an increase in attendance compared to previous years, Williams said.

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