There they sat at the table, less than 48 hours after the close of One Spark.
The businessman. The strategist. The creator.
And they were feeling pretty good.
About 260,000 people had come Downtown to the five-day festival, double from the year before.
Success had been assisted by critical changes made after the first year — a smaller footprint, nearly quadruple the investment capital pool and crowdfunding money, and adding an education component through EdSpark.
And then there was the perfect chamber-of-commerce weather all five days.
“Somebody said that based on the weather, we have the legitimate right to say, ‘One Spark presented by God,’” said Peter Rummell, a veteran businessman and major investor in One Spark.
Since mid-2012, organizers have orchestrated two successful editions of One Spark. An obvious question: “How do you make 2015 even better?”
That, Rummell said, depends on what better means. “Does better mean bigger?” he asked. “We really don’t know.”
He talked about the group’s “fantastic” 18-20 month run.
“We’re thrilled with where we are. The question now is what do we do with it,” Rummell said.
With more than 600 creators this year, Rummell said he is “personally concerned we may be at the outer limits of what you can absorb.”
One thing is clear to all three: One Spark is more than a festival. It’s a change of the community’s heart and its reputation.
Michael Munz, an executive vice president at the Dalton Agency, said the evolution of
One Spark is a year-round opportunity to create an ecosystem
for becoming a creative community like New York, London or San Francisco.
“If you’re not one of those cities, how do you keep Elton in Jacksonville?” asked Munz, a longtime political and communications strategist.
Elton Rivas is the creator at the table. The 33-year-old helped start One Spark, CoWork Jax and the KYN business incubator that grew out of the 2013 festival.
For Rivas, staying in Jacksonville means having the opportunity to be involved in creating an entrepreneurial community.
“These smaller markets, and particularly Jacksonville, have the opportunity to do that,” he said. “And that scratches all the itches. … At the end of the day, that’s meaningful work.”
Jacksonville provides a great foundation to launch things, he said, pointing to the recent success of Web.com and EverBank. “They were startups,” Rivas said.
It’s also building awareness that Jacksonville is creating that ecosystem, Munz said, so it can attract more people like Rivas.
This year, One Spark organizers sought out interviews with national media whose viewers and readers focus on the creative community they were trying to reach. It worked, they said.
They’ll take that lesson and many others as they turn their attention to Berlin, Germany, which will host its One Spark festival Sept. 12-14.
Another key point is that the event can’t be turned over to a governmental body because it loses credibility with the creators and the investors.
Rummell said the event takes “private flexibility and nimbleness and creative non-political reasoning.”
That said, government cooperation was a huge driver in this year’s success. They praised the help they received from City Hall to public safety to transportation agencies.
“They all participated in extraordinary ways,” Munz said.
The three didn’t have much time to soak in the atmosphere during One Spark, but enjoyed random scenes that captured the collaborative essence of the festival.
How six women line dancing suddenly turned into a 30-person performance.
The Jacksonville police officer who was beatboxing with a creator.
The volunteers who were corralling people 15 minutes before voting closed.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few worries before the festival began.
For Munz and Rummell, it was the weather.
“I obsessed about it for weeks before,” said Rummell, a self-proclaimed weather nerd.
Even after the prediction of good weather came out on Tuesday, Munz got a little concerned Wednesday.
He said he texted Rummell: “You said it was going to be sunny and I’m watching clouds coming in. What is going on?”
Rivas recalled stopping in the middle of a Downtown road Wednesday morning, hours before the opening ceremony, looking up and saying, “Man, I hope people show up today.”
@editormarilyn
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