GINA B. GOOD / PVT Mike Selbach, president of the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce and Lucy Ivins, the Chamber?s executive director gave a comprehensive overview of the Chamber?s many services and accomplishments at Tuesday?s town board meeting. No mention was made of pending lawsuits. Advertisement

No matter who sues whom about what, Sparks is no longer considering "City of Festivals" as its brand.

However, it's not because the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce threatened Sparks with an injunction in March. The reason is because it doesn't make sense to advertise something the city can't deliver.

Roger Brooks, president of Destination Development International Inc. (DDI), the firm tasked with developing a marketing direction to attract tourist dollars for Sparks and Pahrump, said Sparks did consider the festival city brand as a possibility but not a final plan.

Wednesday, in an interview from Albuquerque, Brooks said Sparks is already a festival city with venues such as Victorian Square and an amphitheater. However, DDI research showed Sparks would need 70 festivals, each lasting three days, to generate the 200 event days necessary to own the Festival City brand.

More importantly, that would mean increased nights in hotels and associated tourist spending in restaurants and other businesses.

"Even though they have outstanding venues, Sparks would require additional staffing at city departments at a time when they are actually laying off employees," Brooks explained.

"It just isn't feasible in this economy. You can't tax people more to support the staff necessary to ramp up that kind of program.

"With city cutbacks and layoffs -- including their festivals and events department -- we abandoned the 'Festival City' direction for them, instead focusing on 'Something always going on,'" said Brooks.

"This way, Sparks can concentrate on the tag line, 'It's Happening Here' and 'I'm in Sparks. Where are you?' The entire focus will be on activities, not just festivals, which are much larger events and very labor intense," he said. "Sparks is already known for its festivals, which draw hundreds of thousands of guests annually. But now we can promote activities like paddle-boating with the family and fishing on the lake, so there is something always going," said Brooks.

Another reason for abandoning the festival direction for Sparks is because Cedar City, Utah, is known as "The Festival City," attracting some of the same geographic markets as Sparks.

"We always preach not to copy others unless they are in an entirely different market," he said. "Cedar City has a lot of festivals and has been working on that focus for years.

"Cedar City did not threaten us with a lawsuit for stealing their idea, just as Napa Valley hasn't sued hundreds of 'Wine Countries' that have sprung up all over North America."

Dan Rodriquez, the former president of the Pahrump Chamber, is credited for developing the concept of "Valley of Festivals" for Pahrump.

Brooks explained that Sparks contracted with DDI for a detailed, step-by-step marketing plan, graphics and collateral materials at a cost of $114,000 while Pahrump, using funds from the chamber, paid $25,000 for help developing branding concepts and graphics.

"After having no response to our repeated attempts to contact those assigned to work with us from the town, we've finally been told Pahrump is going ahead with the festivals idea. We'll complete our work on the project in May," Brooks said.