Mercer Island’s arts community is reeling after the Island’s first annual “South by Northwest 2016” festival was canceled on Monday morning. The festival, which was scheduled to be held all week at Groveland Beach Park, was shut down abruptly due to unexpectedly poor attendance.
“We wanted to demonstrate that Mercer Island can sustain a thriving arts community and become ‘The Austin of the Pacific Northwest’,” said Fulan D. Hill, the Island businessman who conceived and created SXNW 2016. “But the only people who showed up were two accordion players and fifteen protesters from Protect Our Parks.”
Festival organizers blamed the low turnout in part on the 9:30 P.M. curfew and the ban on alcohol sales imposed by the City Council. They plan to recoup their investment by turning their website — www.mercerislandsuxnow.com — into a specialty-themed pornography site.
As of press time the fate of the Coachella Mercer Island Arts Festival, scheduled to be held next month at the site of the former recycling center, is unknown.