Barnaby Evans has a long memory, so he still hasn’t forgiven the Wall Street Journal for writing in 1983 that Rhode Island was “little more than a smudge beside the fast lane to Cape Cod.”
Thankfully, Evans put his remarkable talent to good use by creating WaterFire, the world–renowned fire sculpture installation along the rivers in downtown Providence that has done more to establish, improve, and enhance Rhode Island’s reputation across the globe than anyone could have possibly imagined when it was created nearly 30 years ago.
Think about it. Tens of millions of people have visited Providence on a WaterFire night, held regularly on Saturdays each summer, but also for special occasions like the Fourth of July celebration last week. Aside from every restaurant booking up and hotel rates tripling in the city during WaterFire, only Newport’s Cliff Walk rivals WaterFire for most marriage proposals in any one spot in Rhode Island.
Advertisement
I can’t imagine Providence without WaterFire — my partner and I went on our first date at Cafe Nuovo on a WaterFire night, and I’m still paying for it 15 years later — so when I started hearing in recent months that the nonprofit that has run the events was having financial challenges, I didn’t want to believe it.
But after talking with Evans and his team, I can tell you there’s a fire behind that smoke.
With corporate donations dwindling and state leaders hemming and hawing over providing additional financial support, WaterFire found itself $750,000 in the red last fiscal year — its largest shortfall ever. Now Evans is beginning to question whether WaterFire has a future in Rhode Island’s capital city.
“The challenge we have is that the event is so large and so seamlessly produced that everyone assumes it’s got huge resources and is secure in its future, and they can’t imagine it would go away,” Evans told me when we spoke last week.
He continued: “And so they always think that someone else must be funding it. Well, everyone needs to fund it if it’s going to continue.”
Already, there have been some red flags.
While thousands of visitors flocked to Providence for the Fourth of July WaterFire last week, the next full lighting — which includes more than braziers — isn’t planned until Aug. 3. There wasn’t a full lighting at all in June, and the event has cut back its hours (from midnight to 11 p.m.) to save on costs.
Advertisement
There’s no single reason for WaterFire’s woes, but a couple of factors are obvious. The nonprofit typically seeks private sponsors for each event — the Providence Tourism Council and Red Bull have signed on for an Aug. 17 lighting — but corporations have increasingly become stingy with both their marketing and philanthropic budgets. WaterFire typically seeks $80,000 for a headline sponsorship of an event, but more and more companies are asking for discounts. Even that doesn’t cover the full projected cost of $250,000 per event (if you include staff wages).
Worse yet, some companies have found a shameless workaround to sponsoring a WaterFire. They just rent out the Capital Grille on a WaterFire night, which means they get all the benefits of watching the gorgeous bonfires while their clients munch on filet mignon.
And WaterFire gets nothing.
The organization has a $4 million annual budget that largely comes from corporate and personal donations, a $400,000 line item in the state budget, and about $500,000 a year from renting space inside its accompanying arts center on Valley Street in Providence, according to managing director and co-CEO Peter Mello. The venue has become a favorite fund-raising gala spot for dozens of nonprofit organizations across the state.
On the spending side, Evans and Mello aren’t exactly cashing in. Evans, the executive director, made $116,000 in 2022, according to the organization’s most recent tax filing. Mello made about $132,000. Roughly half of WaterFire’s budget goes to staff wages and benefits for about 30 employees, plus the dozens of part-time workers who assist with putting on each event.
Advertisement
In recent years, annual insurance costs have skyrocketed to nearly $250,000, while the organization’s capital expenses have increased each year. The organization also has to shell out nearly $50,000 a year for police details to the city of Providence, a cost that used to be largely written off by the city. In April, WaterFire had to cut a check to the city for nearly $25,000 for past-due police details just to hold an event.
So tighten your belts, the cynic might say. It’s time to do more with less.
Evans will talk you in circles about the 17 acres of downtown that WaterFire covers, with its boats, braziers, trucks, speaker systems, cables, lights, all of which require storage and upkeep. But the key thing to know is that whether there’s three WaterFires scheduled each year or a dozen, the equipment and staffing costs don’t disappear.
“People make the mistake of thinking WaterFire is analogous to something like a concert, where a musician shows up, pays the band, rents a hall, unlocks the theater doors, collects the money, and then moves on to another town,” Evans said.
In fact, it would take several Taylor Swift concerts to generate the level of economic activity that WaterFire brings to Rhode Island each year.
A 2012 study from the US Army Corps of Engineers found that WaterFire contributed $114 million in economic output for Rhode Island. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly $163 million today. And that’s not counting the invaluable marketing value WaterFire brings. Last month, CNN ranked Providence No. 2 on its list of best towns to visit in 2024.
Advertisement
If it’s not already clear, just about everyone benefits from WaterFire except the people who actually make the event happen. If losing the PawSox broke our hearts, it’s no joke to say that losing WaterFire could break out wallets.
It’s time for a collective effort to pony up for WaterFire. Anyone can make a donation to the organization, but corporations have to do a better job supporting these events. Maybe the Partnership for Rhode Island, whose board includes the CEOs of every major company in the state, could find a way to sponsor more WaterFires.
And the state and city government are going to need to do more, too. There’s talk that the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation is going to kick in some extra money for WaterFire in exchange for a seat on the nonprofit’s board, and that’s a welcome sign. But how about doubling the $400,000 state contribution? If the city came to the table with another $200,000 a year, that would mean $1 million in public support.
It’s really the least we could do for a guy and his art project that transformed Rhode Island from a smudge into a star.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.