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New Message From Don Juan & Miguel

Started by BubbleWright, April 23, 2021, 02:28:29 PM

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BubbleWright

To our friends and fans of the Sterling Renaissance Festival.
While the situation with the Sterling Renaissance Festival regarding the games has been resolved, it appears that the festival management is unable to keep their stories of our moving on from Sterling straight or truthful.
Here are a couple of the festival answers to questions people asked regarding our absence this season. These were posted by the Sterling Renaissance Festival upon their official Facebook page.

"Mark Kotzin Sadly D&J chose to move to the PA festival for more money, we had offered them a significant raise but to no avail. The PA festival at that time overlapped our event leaving us only 2 weekends for their 2021 sterling availability and this left us a huge hole in our lineup so we had to quickly book a replacement act, subsequently and ironically PA shifted their schedule much later, and in the end would have allowed them to do both after all. Unfortunately we had contracted for a replacement by then and were locked in. Their games were under a separate agreement which required the festival "first right of refusal" and they were attempting to sell them to a third party for more money and we had to remind them that we had an agreement to be followed. We wish they had been more clear in their messaging and are sad to see them go but this was entirely their decision."

What really happened:
1st- We were not offered a raise. We asked for a raise to return for the 2020 season, we received half of what we asked for.
2nd- At the time the PA festival only overlapped 4 weekends which left us 3 weekends to work the Sterling festival. We offered those weekends to Sterling, but we never got an official answer and were not offered a contract for the 2021 season after 2020 didn't happen.
3rd- The first right of refusal, quoted from our games agreement with the Sterling festival and signed by Doug Waterbury was this:
"In the event Don Juan and Miguel, LLC receive an offer to purchase the Games that Sterling Renaissance Festival
shall have first right of refusal to purchase the games on the same terms and conditions being offered to Don Juan and Miguel, LLC."
We had an agreement with a buyer and when we presented the buyers offer to the festival, their answer was not to make a counter offer, but instead, to not renew our contracts and to not allow us to sell the games to a 3rd party at all even though this 3rd party was an approved vendor at the Festival.
While 2020 was going to be our last season performing in Sterling we really wanted to come back for the first 3 weekends of the 2021 season to have a chance to say goodbye to our friends.

Again, from the official Sterling Facebook page: "Greg Kacprzak Greg the owners are not forcing them not to return in fact they still had 3 years left on our agreement and they chose not to honer (sic) our arrangement sadly and signed with another larger event (for more money) that overlapped most of our weekends leaving only a couple available. This was their decision not ours. We are not sure why they aren't sharing this part of the story accurately?? We are sad to see them go as well..."

What really happened:
1st- We did not have 3 years left on an agreement because 2020 was the only season we had been contracted for.
In 40 plus years of signing contracts with many festival around the country we have never broken an agreement.
The real reason why 2020 was going to be our last season at Sterling is that we are both in our mid 60's and we wanted to reduce our schedule so we can perform for a few more years. The Sterling festival was the most logical to drop for a couple reasons.
1- we have multiple year contracts with Arizona, Scarborough and Carolina. We contract Pennsylvania year to year
because we can't do the whole season. The logic was that we work 2 festivals in a row and take 2 months off so our bodies can recuperate.
2 - We would perform at the Arizona festival in February and March; Scarborough April and May, then take June and July off. Then we would perform at the Pennsylvania festival in August and September, the Carolina festival in October and November, and take December and January off.
We offer this in hope of clearing up any misunderstandings. Hopefully, now, we can all just move on.
Don Juan and Miguel®
"It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."
   Antoine de St. Exupery