Fair Street Scene In The Works

The board of directors of the Del Mar Fairgrounds has approved a contract to host Street Scene September 22-23, and is now awaiting a signature by the California festival’s organizers.

The festival with downtown San Diego roots struggled to find a suitable home in recent years, moving from the Gaslamp District downtown to a 2.5 million-square-foot parking lot west of Qualcomm Stadium. Attendance numbers declined and further locations were scouted but nothing seemed to fit.

After organizer Rob Hagey partnered with Live Nation, he and Live Nation Southern California President Nick Masters decided the fairgrounds could be a good location for the festival.

Masters previously told Pollstar the fairgrounds could serve as not only a more permanent location, but one much better suited for such a production.

"It has a lot of infrastructure, it has buildings so we can do some things indoors, as well as outdoor stages," he said. "It has all that parking, it has paved roads. It has places we can do production so you don’t have to go to a field and build everything."

The contract stipulates that LN would pay $50,000 in rent and split food and beverage sales with the fairgrounds, according to the Union-Tribune. The fairgrounds will also control alcohol serving standards and how security will be enforced during the festival.

The display or sale of drug paraphernalia or anything with obscene or offensive language or images would reportedly be banned as conditions of the contract.

But fairgrounds GM Tim Fennell told the paper the conditions of the contract are typical of the agreements the fairgrounds makes for events of this nature.

"I’m very confident that we can be the host of this event and do it in a safe and secure manner," Fennell said.

A Live Nation representative could not be reached at press time.