Festival reports robust season

Barbara Diamond

Festival of Arts officials reported a successful 2004 season, which

included increases in gross and net assets, a minor decrease in

membership and dissension on the board.

“Our meetings can be lively,” board President Anita Mangels said

Wednesday night at the annual membership meeting.

Mangels will serve a second term as president, elected by the

board after the general meeting was over. Bob Henry will serve again

as vice president, Carolyn Reynolds as secretary. Board newcomer Fred

Sattler was named treasurer, taking over for David Young.

Sattler replaced long-time board member John Campbell, who lost

his seat by a reported 43 votes cast by 1,325 voting members in the

2004-05 election. The results were announced at the meeting.

Incumbent Ann Webster, who worked for the festival for 30 years,

was returned to the board with the most votes. She chairs the

Scholarship Committee, which has given $2.9 million to Laguna Beach

High School graduates since 1971.

The top three vote-getters ran as a slate. Campbell is being urged

to run again. Campbell, a Laguna Beach businessman who grew up in

town, served as vice president of the board in 2003. He reported at

the annual meeting last year a membership of 7,414, the largest in

festival history. The 2004 membership slipped slightly to 7,284,

according to festival figures.

Mangels credited staff and volunteers for the success of the

festival and pageant.

“The staff is amazing,” Mangels said. “It is a running joke that

they run the place in spite of us. Lord knows they are not here for

the salary.”

Pageant Director Dee Challis Davy presented life-memberships to

veteran volunteers Steven Hargrove, Charlotte Chamberlin and Dee

Underhill. Mangels presented a life-membership to Henry.

Mangels reviewed the accomplishments during the past year: new

studio/work space, by-law changes that prohibit the pageant from

reproduction at other sites, early completion of the next year’s

budget “for probably the first time ever,” and a careful review of

what the festival needs to do to the site.

“It is more important to do it right than to do it right now,”

Mangels said.

The pageant and the festival are not small-time operations, Young

said. Young, who remembers when the gross was $30,000 and a

production cost $40,000 reported a gross of $7.9 million this year,

with expenses of $7.6 million, including production costs of more

than $4 million.

Challis Davy took over the directorship from Glen Eytchison, who

held the position for 13 years. “I wasn’t worried, I thought Dee

could do a better job,” said Young, who has seen more than a few

directors in his long association with the festival.

“This is the 50th yearly meeting I have attended,” Young said.

“There are about the same number of people here as at the first one.

“I keep thinking I should get out and let someone else take my

place, but I have been having so much fun ... especially the last

five years.”

Young was a leader in the insurrection that ousted a board of

directors that wanted to move the pageant to San Clemente. He was

also a leader in the battle against the board’s consideration of a

proposal to clone the pageant by licensing production rights, which

led to the resignation of the first-ever executive director who came

up with the proposal and a subsequent lawsuit.