RIVERFEST WILL BE HELD

The show will go on.

After a week of public pleas for sponsors to help prevent financially pinched Riverfest from being canceled, organizers announced Wednesday that enough corporations, merchants and individuals have chipped in to stage Riverfest 1999 June 11-12.

The volume of the response made it impossible to enumerate those who came to the rescue, said Phyllis Lipscomb, president of the Riverfest Association.

"I think our enormous concerns hit home," she said at a press conference at the Broadway floodgate.

Organizers had said Sunday they were about $20,000 short of the $55,000 needed to stage a scaled-back version of the event, now in its 21st year. Lipscomb said they are still short of $55,000 but close enough to go forward.

"We are grateful to all," she said.

A number of the festival's longstanding sponsors "kicked in to help us out," she explained.

Members of the Riverfest Association have said downpours during the past two festivals cut into receipts, straining its reserves.

The decision to proceed was a close call, she said. "It was very close. By last night we had a good inkling."

The association already has started to work on ways to prevent a similar dilemma in the future, Lipscomb said, primarily through increasing sponsorships and the number of volunteers involved.

While no single "shining knight" picked up the tab, the Downtown Merchants Association "came through like champs," said Bill Dunn, a member of the Riverfest Association board.

"There was no way they were going to let a 21-year event go by," he said.

Scaling back Riverfest primarily will consist of limiting the festival to Water and Main streets and excluding Spanish Street, Dunn said.

"We're going to bring it back to the river. I think that's a good point."

Festival-goers also may find less activity at the southern end of Main Street. That's because the buildings are not set up to provide power out front, and power can't be run off the poles because of the liability involved, Dunn said.

The Riverfest Association hopes more sponsors and volunteers come forward before the event. The Riverfest office number is (573) 335-1388.