A downtown music festival is calling it quits after nearly a decade.
Phog owner and show organizer Tom Lucier says Phog Fest has been canceled.
The concert has been housed at or in several venues for the past nine years, but Lucier says he's run out of ideas to make the show financially viable.
Lucier says policing is a huge expense, but it's not the only cost downloaded to small businesses in the city's core, the little things add up too.
"The amount of money we spend on taxes and on licensing and on all the other stuff you have to spend it on, when you need something else small businesses are nickel-and-dimed to death," he says. "It's not fun, you have to be a small business owner because you love it."
Lucier says prices go up for business owners all the time, but shifting that cost to customers is never well received.
"All of the things that you need for an event, the cost has gone up, not just what the city requires, everything is more expensive," he says."The ticket price has to stay the same. That's the key to that argument, I can't charge more than $20 without taking flack for a festival, an event that's costing a lot of money."
Every year Lucier promotes Phog Fest and pays thousands of dollars out of pocket then wait to see if people show up. He says gate sales are his primary draw, and he can't hope that will change.
Lucier says something as simple as bad weather could cause people to stay home and leave him on the hook.
"That's not something that a small business like mine can sustain, we would have to close the bar. People are always just, come on, you can do it, just have the event," says Lucier. "You're asking me to risk my livelihood ... the business that feeds my kids and employs six people, to gamble it for one day."
He told AM800 News he's always stayed away from major sponsorships to maintain the autonomy of the show, but continued to try and obtain public funding to no avail.
Lucier hasn't closed the door on bringing the festival back in the future, but says he can't justify the financial risk to his business for the satisfaction of putting on a great party in downtown Windsor anymore.