SnowGlobe No. 3 in South Lake Tahoe? — maybe

By Kathryn Reed

Hear that sound?

It used to be a loud bass that rattled nerves. Now it’s the cha-ching of cash registers – in the literal sense of local businesses and the figurative sense of city coffers and college admissions.

The reason?

SnowGlobe.

SnowGlobe may return to South Lake Tahoe for a third year. Photo/LTN

Chad Donnelly wants to hear more of that cha-ching sound as well. He is the promoter of the three-day music festival that has been staged at the community ball fields next to Lake Tahoe Community College for the last two years.

His is a private business, so the actual amount of money the South Lake Tahoe venue has put into his pocket is unknown. But he wants more and he no longer wants to pay for the privilege to bring his eclectic line-up of techno musicians-disc jockeys to town during New Year’s Eve weekend. Donnelly wants to be paid $100,000. That’s what he is making at his other venues.

For the past two years he has paid the city and Lake Tahoe Community College to cover part of their expenses.

But now the North Shore wants part of what it sees as a lucrative event. It’s a bit of a bidding war that once again is pitting the North Shore against the South Shore.

Donnelly claims SnowGlobe brings $5 million to the South Shore. He is preparing an economic study that should be released April 18.  The city, college and business community will have something more to evaluate when it is released.

While it’s not public information what the North Shore has offered Donnelly, the presumption is $100,000 or less since that is what he is asking from the South Shore. He also wants a five-year contract.

The business community has expressed it is willing to pony up the $100,000 as an investment. The theory being that you need to spend money to make money. Plus, SnowGlobe gives people something to do other than stand in the cold on New Year’s Eve at casinos where nothing happens and it attracts people who might not have otherwise come to Tahoe.

At the Tuesday night LTCC board of education meeting it was agreed that the college should work with the city to keep the event in South Lake Tahoe. (Board member Fritz Wenck was absent.)

South Lake Tahoe City Manager Nancy Kerry, City Councilwoman Angela Swanson, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority Executive Director Carol Chaplin, and Lakeside Inn Casino’s Mike Bradford all spoke April 9 in favor of 2013 being year three of the music festival.

Chaplin spoke both as LTVA’s head honcho and as a mom of two teenagers. She said how she let her boys attend the event and would do so again.

The biggest hurdle is how to protect the ball field that was built with Measure S money by taxpayers – an initiative that is still being paid off by those on the California side of the South Shore.

It is not definitively known how much life SnowGlobe is taking off the field, but those involved recognize the field was built for play, not music festivals. If those concerns can be mitigated, the city is ready to go forward with SnowGlobe 2013.

Donnelly is also in talks with Vail Resorts to bring a summer concert to Heavenly Mountain Resort.