For 13 years, the Texas Reds Festival has been a signature event for the city of Bryan.
After the pandemic cancelled last year’s steak and wine event and after the city council created a tourism office, there was no opposition by the governing body to not holding Reds this year.
That was among recommendations of a committee led by the director of the Destination Bryan tourism office, John Friebele.
There is the possibility of the Reds festival not returning. Mayor Andrew Nelson supported the idea of recruiting others to run the event.
Councilman Flynn Adcock, who was looking forward to the return of the steak and wine event, encouraged Friebele “to create such a great event that I will forget about Texas Reds and that I will say oh, this is much better.”
Friebele told the council they do not have the staff to run Reds or other events previously staffed by the Downtown Bryan Association (DBA). In 2019, Friebele said DBA employees spent 1,464 hours on Reds between July and September and there was a net monetary loss of $3,039.81 plus the cost of in-kind services provided by the city of Bryan. In 2018, Reds had a financial loss of $65,800.56.
The Destination Bryan ad-hoc committee recommended having Reds and other downtown events run by others with some level of city assistance.
Click below to hear comments from the April 13, 2021 Bryan city council meeting. Speakers include the director of the Destination Bryan tourism office John Friebele, city council members Flynn Adcock, Reuben Marin, and Bobby Gutierrez, and mayor Andrew Nelson.
Listen to “Bryan city council agrees to cancel the 2021 Texas Reds Festival” on Spreaker.
Statement from the Destination Bryan tourism office:
Destination Bryan announces the re-evaluation of the Texas Reds Steak and Grape Festival along with other Bryan events.
Destination Bryan Executive Director, John Friebele, presented to Bryan City Council on Tuesday, April 13, 2021, and officially recommended to not host the Texas Reds Festival in 2021 with the intent to develop multiple signature tourism events and additional quality of life events throughout the year.
To support these efforts, Destination Bryan plans to establish an event department to provide the organization the capacity and resources to effectively execute these events while also maintaining and expanding destination marketing efforts.
Over the next several weeks, Destination Bryan will be brainstorming on how to expand on current events hosted, leverage more partnerships with community organizations and evaluate new potential event ideas. The intent is to increase economic impact to our local community, hotels and businesses through additional events annually, as opposed to one large scale weekend festival.
“We have an opportunity to lean into Bryan’s history, culture, diversity and uniqueness to establish several events over the course of the coming year so that we can continue to expand everything we are doing as a destination marketing organization.” says John Friebele.
City of Bryan Council Members were receptive to the recommendation and are looking forward to seeing what new and expanded events Destination Bryan presents in the future.