This weekend Venture Richmond employees and volunteers will be putting together stages for the upcoming Folk Festival. Still looming in the background is the controversy over Venture Richmond’s ‘Tredegar Green’ theater plan. It seems like a good time to present this information from concerned citizen C. Wayne Taylor:
I have an aerial photo that show the Newmarket venue after a festival. People trampled the grass except where it was protected by structures. The stage, control tent, cable runs, and concession tents locations are clearly visible as green areas. I marked the areas that the audience occupied; excluding space for foot traffic.
Then I laid the area over the Venture Richmond (ed.- proposed ‘Tredegar Green’) site. It’s interesting that none of the Newmarket footprint reaches the “upper lawn” of the VR site. Spectators in the upper lawn would be further away from the stage than anyone at the Newmarket venue.
Sq Ft Percent
Newmarket 86,234 100%Venture Richmond
Lower 34,567 40%
Upper 16,419 19%
TOTAL 50,986 59%
Reduction 35,248 41%
The canal, street, etc. on the Venture Richmond site eliminate 60% of the Newmarket footprint. The upper lawn adds back 19%. That is a net reduction of 41%.
The Venture Richmond venue is very poor and cannot accommodate the crowds experienced on the Newmarket site. I think a main reason Berry (ed.- Jack Berry of Venture Richmond) wants to modify the canal is to increase the lower lawn square footage.
It appears to me that it really does make sense to consider moving the main stage to Brown’s Island and move the two stages on Brown’s Island to the lower lawn and upper lawn. The sizes of the venues would more closely match the sizes of the audiences. The regrading expense would be less. I don’t understand why Berry has rejected that alternative.
As the Folk Festival (Venture Richmond’s propaganda push) gets closer, expect more information and history to be shared on oregonhill.net. It’s important to recognize that Oregon Hill is not against the Folk Festival, but the neighborhood association is strongly against the current ‘Tredegar Green’ plan that Venture Richmond is wrongly insisting on and arrogantly pushing upon our historic neighborhood.