The City Council denied a request by Indiecade Festival for a fee waiver for the use of two rooms at Veterans Memorial Auditorium for its gaming event in Culver City next month due to the gaming festival’s board’s decision not to provide financial statements on past events.
The 3-2 vote against forgoing the cost of the room rental was the first time that the gaming event had their request turned down since they began coming to Culver City six years ago and illustrated some contention between Indicade representatives and some of the members of the council about providing the gaming event with what amounted to a $4,000 a in kind contribution to a for-profit company.
Billed as the “biggest independent game celebration in the nation,” Indiecade is a threeday event that showcases new innovations from the gaming industry.
Certain members of the council seemed dismayed that the Indiecade board did not provide a budget, income and expenses from last year’s event as well as other financial documents, which the council requested before deciding on waiving room costs at Veterans Auditorium for the event.
“It really troubles me that you don’t have a budget and even if you do, that your board is unwilling to share it with us,” Councilman Jeffery Cooper said. “In my mind, that makes me really skeptical that you guys are making a decent profit.”
His colleague Andrew Weissman expressed similar concerns.
“We’ve never seen the expenses that Indiecade generates despite the fact that they come to us each year asking for fee waivers,” Weissman added. “I’m troubled that your board would refuse to provide that information at the same time that it’s asking the city to waive fees.”
Indiecade Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Barish said it was not a matter of not wanting to provide accurate and up to date financial disclosure.
“We are not refusing to do that. We only had two weeks to put the information together and we didn’t feel like that was feasible to do for what you were asking for,” Barish told the council.
Vice Mayor Micheàl O’Leary argued unsuccessfully to authorize the fee waiver despite the lack of financial information. His substitute amendment to have Indiecade pay for any cleanup of the rooms if the fee was waived failed.
Barish claimed that there was a large scandal in the gaming industry where hackers are stealing information from various companies and that made her board skeptical about releasing its past budget.
Cooper called Barish’s response a “cockamamie reason” and said his trust had been “really shattered” by what he perceived as a refusal to be financially transparent.
Barish then decided to cut her losses before the council voted.
“We love Culver City but we’ll withdraw our request,” Barish said. “This kind of conversation a month out from our event just isn’t where we need to be.” Weismann, Cooper and Councilman Jim Clark opposed the motion. Mayor Meghan Sahli- Wells voted in support of the fee waiver.