wfn.org | "Dawn" Deficit Will Be Around $500,000

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

12-January-2000 
00018 
 
    "Dawn" Deficit Will Be Around $500,000 
 
    Organizers say reserves are sufficient to cover shortfall 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As expected, "Dawn ... an Epiphany," the highly 
successful but vastly under-attended millennium-turning event for youth and 
young adults of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), failed to break even. 
 
    But organizers of the event, which drew about 2,000 young Presbyterians 
to Indianapolis Dec. 28-Jan. 1, say there are enough reserves on hand from 
previous money-making youth conferences to cover the deficit. The 
Congregational Ministries Division (CMD) director, the Rev. Donald G. 
Campbell, said on Jan. 10 that the shortfall will be "somewhere between 
$350,000 and $830,000." The event's planners expect the final deficit to be 
at the lower end of that range. 
 
    "The people in Indianapolis have been really great," Rodger Nishioka, 
the coordinator for youth and young adult ministries, said during a Jan. 12 
interview with the Presbyterian News Service.  "Everyone we have talked 
with is open to negotiating (such things as reduced deposits and 
cancellation fees)." 
 
    The Rev. Ed Craxton, the CMD's associate director, said "the vast 
majority" of the unreconciled deficit is in cancellation fees for unused 
hotel rooms. "Dawn" organizers originally booked nearly 5,000 rooms in 19 
Indianapolis hotels. Substantially fewer than 1,000 rooms, in just five or 
six hotels, actually were used. 
 
    Craxton and Nishioka said they are still negotiating with other 
facilities and vendors, such as the Indiana State Fairgrounds, where some 
events were originally scheduled but none was held, and operators of 
shuttle buses that weren't needed after the fairgrounds site was abandoned. 
They said those talks should result in additional savings. 
 
    The budget for the event was scaled back from $2 million to between 
$1.2 million and $1.3 million. Craxton said CMD has "almost $500,000" 
available to cover the deficit - money derived from past, financially 
successful Youth Triennium events. 
 
    When planning for "Dawn" began, several years ago, few anticipated the 
"Y2K" anxiety that would greet the approach of the new millennium. Relying 
mostly on attendance at previous PC(USA) youth events, CMD officials 
expected that as many as 30,000 Presbyterians between the ages of 13 and 35 
would flock to Indianapolis for the event. 
 
    "This, like many other millennial activities, is attributable to Y2K 
anxiety," Craxton said. 
 
    Nishioka noted that countless other planned events suffered the same 
fate as the "Dawn."  He said the Southern Baptists had to scale back a 
seven-city millennial celebration to five cities, and fell further short of 
anticipated attendance than the PC(USA) did. 
 
    "It's unfortunate," Craxton said of the lower-than-expected attendance, 
"but it didn't diminish the event at all.  It was a tremendous time of 
spiritual growth for the young people who were there, with intensive Bible 
study every morning, and phenomenal Christian concerts every night." 
 
    Nishioka called the event "a measure of our faithfulness," and added: 
"We need to be creative and take risks. Sometimes they don't pay off in 
economic terms, but the risk is well worth it to keep alive our hopes and 
visions of who God wants us to be and what God wants us to do."  

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