(12/4) At its November 30 meeting the Thurmont Town Council held a Colorfest workshop comparing festival income and expenses.

The total revenue for Colorfest 2021 was $50,827, which was down 8 percent from 2019’s total of $63,265, according to Chief Financial Officer Linda Joyce.

In 2019 Colorfest "just about broke even" while this season’s Colorfest was in the red by $25,707, Joyce said.

Total expenditures for 2021 were $76,534, which was up $12,000 from 2019, she said. Risen expenditures were due in part to the addition of two additional buses per day to transport patrons and an increase in sanitation measurements.

"It’s a general trend everywhere that prices on everything are going up," Mayor John Kinnaird said, citing materials for his own business as an example.

President of Catoctin Colorfest Carol Robertson had anticipated a loss and said COVID-19 was not the only factor. Along with health concerns "A lot of vendors had to go out of business because of the COVID, because that was their major source of income and they had to take other jobs. " Many performers also like to book a year in advance and the decision to hold the festival wasn’t made until springtime, she said.

Although Robertson estimated Colorfest had approximately 30 less vendors this season, requests for vendor permits kept being received up until the day before the event.

Many of this year’s vendors also saw an increase in sales on Saturday than they had years previous, she said. "If the vendors are happy, then I’m happy," Robertson said.

"Already, the applications have started coming in for next year," including potential new vendors, "So I really do look forward to an increase again next year," she said.

"We got into this this year knowing full well that there could be a loss this year, but I personally think it was important we got back into it to see what’s going to happen so we could make some decisions on it," Kinnaird said.

Discussing what could be done to overset costs for future events, Kinnaird considered the festival’s bus services a necessary expense to keep streets clear of cars and provide transportation for visitors parking in the outer lots. Councilmember Bill Blakeslee suggested increasing event parking fees, noting as it hasn’t been raised in several years.

More discussions involving the possibility of increasing parking fees for Colorfest are expected to be held at a later date and a meeting in August or September is anticipated to discuss possible permit fee increases for 2023 Colorfest as well.