It’s a strain on town resources, but Lisbon residents who filled the town office Tuesday night agreed: The Moxie Festival must go on.

Much of the talk at Tuesday’s workshop examined the amount of time spent on the festival by volunteers and staff, and assessing whether the event was a net benefit to the town.

Town Council Chairman Fern Larochelle said the town has used a lot of internal resources to stage the event, especially in the last two years, including staff time by employees whose job descriptions do not include work for the festival. The committee that organizes the Moxie Festival has nine active members, five of whom are town employees.

Even with volunteers, “the downfall is, the way that we’ve been doing it… isn’t really sustainable,” Larochelle said. “There’s a lot of resources being used up in the town to make this happen, and a lot of resources that the town really doesn’t have.”

“We need to figure out how we’re going to make it happen, and it’s probably not going to happen the way it has been,” he said. “It needs to go back to the point of actually getting the people that really benefit from the Moxie (Festival) to actually spearhead it to move it forward.”

The council appropriates about $2,500 annually as part of the annual budget process to help fund Moxie Festival.

Economic and Community Development Director Scott Benson, who has been involved in running the festival for the last two years, said the actual annual cost has been approximately $25,000.

About 30 percent of the cost — approximately $7,400 — is associated with the fireworks show on Friday, along with parade attractions and musical performances. Another 20 percent — or $5,000 — is spent on logistics that include providing portable toilets, banners, tents and electrical service to vendors.

About 20 percent or $5,000 is for reimbursement for town services including public safety and public works departments. Other expenses are for products the town sells as fundraisers, such as T-shirts.

To help fund the festival, Benson said approximately $14,500 came from municipal and corporate sponsorships this year, another $10,800 came from product sales, $7,000 was raised through collecting vendor fees and $800 was miscellaneous revenue.

Coca-Cola, owners of the Moxie brand, recently agreed to give the town $2,500 annually for five years. The balance of the operating fund is raised by local businesses sponsoring the festival in amounts of $100 to $1,000

Benson said Lisbon residents benefit “because they have a fun community gathering” with an event that “is our community’s best visitor attraction tool.”

Who benefits financially, Benson said, “really comes down A, to the vendors; B, to our local businesses; and C, to our local nonprofits.”

While Benson said “we can see how our local businesses might benefit from the crowds the festival attract,” he admitted there is no established system to specifically track the festival’s financial impact on the local economy.

Main Street gets the most traffic; yet some businesses in the area historically close their stores and others are just too far away, so not every business benefits from the festival. “In fact, I would suggest not even the majority of them,” Benson said.

Much of the discussion Tuesday centered around the amount of time volunteers and town staff put into the event — and the resulting burnout. Residents offered ideas from holding the festival every other year to scaling the festival down to attracting more people by adding a bicycle race.

Jody Durisko, Lisbon’s administrative assistant, noted the committee has tried many of the suggestions made Tuesday but still has difficulty finding people to volunteer.

Councilor Gina Mason, who has been responsible for the parade, said logistics are a problem in a town with three distinct villages spread out over seven miles.

It is difficult to get 50,000 people to Main Street, she said, adding: “We’re needing to spread the festival out, to some degree.”

The event is the largest fundraiser for many nonprofit organizations in town, benefiting groups such as churches, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, said Brenda Rogers, who serves on the Moxie Festival committee.

Over the years, Rogers said she’s heard nonprofit groups tell her: “Don’t ever let the festival fail; it is really critical.”

Pastor Jonathan Jones of the Lisbon Falls Baptist Church suggested engaging nonprofit groups by allowing them to be part of the festival but requiring their representatives to serve on the festival committee.

Another suggestion was to hire a professional to coordinate planning, which Larochelle said could be funded from approximately $9,000 remaining in festival revenue.

After the meeting, Larochelle said he expects the council will assess information gathered Tuesday and most likely hold another meeting.

“The council would never pull the plug on this festival,” Larochelle said. “I think what we need to do is ask the question of where do we go from here and actually get guidance.”

Like so many organizations and communities facing limited resources, “I think right now you really have to think outside the box,” Larochelle said.

FROM THE BEGINNING

The first of what has become the Moxie Festival, known then as the Moxie Mystique, was held at Kennebec Fruit Co., in 1982 with a book signing.

The event drew about 500 people, and another book signing was held two years later when local businessmen and organizations decided to expand the event into a festival, according to Brenda Rogers, the longest serving current Moxie Festival committee member. The first of the well-known parades was held in 1985.

Many people worked to put on the festival, Rogers said. By 1992, as Lisbon’s local chamber of commerce decided to merge with the Androscoggin chamber, the two groups committed to continuing with the Moxie Festival.

The chamber stopped running the festival in 2009 and the town assumed the festival, Rogers said.

No matter who is running the festival, the town has been involved, and the event has involved a lot of collaboration between the various town departments.

“2012 was quite a challenge,” Rogers said. “It took a lot of resources… We were very short on volunteers but it was still a great success.”

— Darcie Moore

dmoore@timesrecord.com