The City of Wildwood’s beach event fee structure could force multiple events to leave the community. Will Morey, of Morey’s Piers, has penned a letter to Greater Wildwoods Tourism Improvement and Development Authority saying that if the city doesn’t rescind its ordinance, both Cape Express Beach Blast events would move to Wildwood Crest and at least one Beach Jam event would go to North Wildwood. A deadline of April 16 has been presented by Morey, which is the next regularly scheduled meeting for the WIldwood Commission.
The City of Wildwood has claimed that these beach events aren’t paying their fair share for the upkeep of the beach. Events typically have paid an event fee and then also reimbursed the city for services used, like police, fire, public works, ect.
The new fee schedule would see events pay for how many participates are involved. Events with under 500 participants would pay $4 per person, 500 to 1500 would pay $3 per person, and 1500 and over would pay $2 per person. An event like the beach blast could see its fees increase by more than 600% from last year to this. This is separate from a beach concert fee structure that would see promoters pay at least $15,000 to hold a concert on the beach.
A proposal has been presented to the City of Wildwood that GWTIDA would provide additional funding to events that have an island wide impact. The plan was effective for 2015, but only if Wildwood went back to its 2013 beach event fee structure. Jack Morey spoke at the Wildwood Commission meeting on Wednesday in favor of this proposal, but the commission didn’t take any action.
