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Show Cedar City Benefited by Festival activities "The Utah Shakespearean Festival has an important impact on Cedar City. It makes people aware of where Cedar City is and according to a study done by the Chamber last year, it brings a lot of dollars into the community, com-munity, The festival attender spends an average of 2.3 days in Cedar City spending an average of $99 each while they are here," said Chamber of Commerce President Harold Hiskey at the group's luncheon last week. Hiskey asked that members of the Chamber and community make a personal commitment to be friendly and helpful to tourists. Publicity "The festival tries to provide an entire experience for the audience said Production Director and Festival Founder Fred Adams. Adams would like to raise a $100,000 fund and use the interest from it to subsidize the rising costs of production. He said that festival costs are now $278,000 and that only $40,000 is given to the event with ticket sales generating $2.r0,000 of the costs. Adams also promoted his idea of putting Old English architectural faces on the stores of Main St. He said that several stores are interested in the idea which include Clark and Linford Jewelers, Sonoma's. Cedar Theater and Christiansen's Department Depart-ment Store. "This could be one of the most effective ef-fective things we could have for attracting at-tracting people to Main St.," said Phillips. lie said that the Festival's artist is available to draw up ideas for each store. Adams stressed that the festival does not end on the Southern Utah State College campus but affects the entire city. member. It is much more than just three plays. We want this to be the person's beat vacation of a lifetime. Activities begin at 10 in the morning and run through the night," said the festival's Public Relations Director Scott Phillips. Phillips said that this year's festival is one of the best acting companies that the festival has had. He said that for every actor, eight other technicians such as costumers, scenery designers and lighting designers are involved in the productions. While the festival had originally been concerned over the gasoline situation, Phillips reported that people are still coming to the festival but from different locations. Ticket sales for in-state areas have increased in-creased and he said that Calif, has Ix'en slow but is now picking up. While every weekend is sold out. Phillips urged that the box office always be checked at 10 a.m. on the day of the performance since 40 seats are always reserved for sale at that time. "Things are changing, for the first time we have had TV stations and magazines approach us," said Phillips. He reported that "Sunset Magazine" is running a feature story on the festival in this month's issue. He said that the major television stations in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas will also do features of the event. A documentary film produced in cooperation with KVLX four years ago was such a success that they are returning this summer to produce another. He thanked the Chamber for their city-wide promotion of "festival days" which will be held next week and for the Chamber's hosts who attend each night's play to assist tourists. He announced the plays for the 1980 Festival season. They will be: "Measure for Measure", "The Comedy of Errors," and "Macbeth". Fund "We are desperately trying to raise bucks for an endowment fund. We can't raise the ticket prices any higher or we will cut off students, farmers, etc. We already have fewer school children attending the plays," G I FRED C. ADAMS R.SCOTT PHILLIPS |