The goal was to find the crux of the matter that soured the relationship between the Stanthorpe Festival Association (Apple & Grape) and the SDRC. Both sides contradicted each other, encouraging the Town & Country Journal to investigate.
The failure of the sponsorship agreement became public several weeks after it had occurred. The Town & Country Journal learned of it after A&G committee member Graham Parker posted on social media. There followed public speculation that suggested political motivations on the side of Mayor Melissa Hamilton and/or Cr Russell Wantling, with social media commentators piling on.
Then a letter written to Samantha Wantling by lawyer Vincenzo Catanzaro was posted by the Apple & Grape Festival Friends & Volunteers page which examined differences in past and current contracts. The poster, who was not named, wrote that “when the proposed 2026 sponsorship agreements were presented to the Festival Committee, it was immediately clear there were differences compared to the agreement used for the 2024 festival”.
The Town & Country Journal filed a Right to Information action to gain access to a range of contracts and documentation, waited several weeks, and then analysed over 300 pages of SDRC information. This journalist also researched dozens of sponsorship agreements that are used by other councils in Queensland, other states, and the private sector.
Sifting through the stack of documents indicated there clearly were differences, but differences that only really seemed to matter due to a mix of mistrust and plain misunderstanding.
The information gleaned from this investigation will be published over the next several weeks as it cannot be summed up easily. Today is about context as the paper compares the general SDRC sponsorship agreement with other councils.
Comparing SDRC sponsorship agreements with other councils
The A&G contract clearly appears to be based on a template, a generic SDRC sponsorship form that council officers modify to suit. Most councils have similar, but sometimes more stringent, clauses in their event sponsorship agreements. For instance, the Scenic Rim can audit how the event holder and receive “formal advice of funds not spent and the return to council of funds not spent on purposes outlined in the agreement.”
All of the agreements examined were comparable to the SDRC and included assessment of benefits, ticket sales, acknowledgement of council in social media, opportunities for the mayor or councillors to participate in the official proceedings. All of them included clauses relating to “reputational risk” to councils or councillor.
Some councils have tougher contracts. The Scenic Rim includes the prohibition of exploiting wages or workers, and the organiser must notify council if they received other grant funding.
In Cairns, the event holder must provide an economic impact assessment. Cairns also has the right to cancel payments “should the event fail to reach the agreed targets (visitation or other) for the event.”
The City of Hunter Valley insists that events must reach milestones before getting the next tranche of funds. That council includes seven clauses relating to intellectual property including photos, videos, ads, royalties, consent, rights, and reproductions. They also reserve the right to terminate the agreement “at any time and for any reason by giving a written notice to you”.
None of the examples from other councils that were examined make mention of one of the sticking points in the A&G negotiation, in-kind support.
The conclusion from the comparisons indicates that while sponsorship agreements vary between councils, there are base elements that are in all of them including benchmarks, responsibilities and termination clauses. Many contracts are far more prohibitive and align with sponsorship agreements from the private sector which can be draconian. For instance, a contract at this funding level in the private sector would allow naming rights over the event.
Next week, the Town & Country Journal will compare A&G 2024 sponsorship agreement with the first version of the 2026 agreement.
