The appearance of the Merchants & Music Festival on the Fort Thomas council meeting agenda sparked strong reactions from residents concerned about its potential cancellation.
During Monday night’s meeting, several residents voiced fears over the possible cancellation of the festival, a free annual event at Tower Park featuring live music, food, local vendors and family activities.
Council member Adam Blau, who brought the issue to the council, said that the city should look at scaling down the festival as a cost-saving measure, noting that the 2025 headliner alone cost the city roughly $50,000.
“This doesn’t even count the amount of man-hours we put into it, the amount of overtime the city has paid,” Blau said. “And if anybody hasn’t heard how we’re doing financially, then they’d be sadly mistaken thinking I wasn’t doing my job by looking into this.”
During the meeting, council reviewed the proposed $165,000 budget and explored cost-saving measures such as securing additional sponsorships, booking local performers and scaling down the event.
Councilmember Ben Pendery, who also chairs the finance committee, noted that decisions need to be made soon, as the city is ramping up to start planning for next year’s festival.
“We need to make sure that we’re all united and can plan for 2026,” Pendery said.
Resident Annie Brown said seeing the festival listed for potential cancellation was her cue to speak up.
“I agree that it may be prudent to look at scaling the [festival] down, but canceling it would be a knee-jerk reaction and a short-sighted solution,” Brown said. “I saw people of all ages coming to see good music. Not only residents from our city showed up, but also people from all across the region.”
The city plans to revisit the festival’s future at a special meeting on Dec. 2.