Wakarusa Organizer Threatens to Move Festival if Kansas Doesn’t Cut Him Fairer Deal

BUZZKILL!

In an awesome Sunday Lawrence Journal-World article, Pipeline Productions owner and Wakarusa mastermind Brett Mosiman claims that he may move his festival out of Kansas if he don’t start gitting the kind of deal them cowboys git.

He’s mad that the organizers of the Country Stampede festival, held at Tuttle Creek State Park near Manhattan, pay less for security and law enforcement personell than Mosiman does for his festival, which has been held at Clinton Lake State Park in Lawrence.

The bone:

The contract for the Wakarusa Festival requires Mosiman’s company to reimburse the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for park rangers, game wardens and other department personnel who help with law enforcement and security at the event. For this year’s festival, that cost is estimated at $30,000.

But the contract for the Country Stampede does not require the department to be reimbursed. That’s despite the department spending “several thousand” dollars to have 20 to 25 department personnel at the four-day event, said Todd Lovin, park manager for Tuttle Creek State Park.

Mosiman cries bigotry. In a very Bob Dylan-like moment, he told the Journal-World

“You can say cowboys are cool and hippies drool, but not if you’re behind the state seal of Kansas,” Mosiman said. “It is profiling, it is discrimination, it is like saying the black kids can’t use the pool.”

Read the full article here.