Kentuck Festival of the Arts, an annual world-renowned festival in west Alabama, may not take place in Kentuck Park next year.

The annual two-day celebration of art, music, and culture is held at the seven-acre park on 5th Street in Northport.

The Kentuck Arts Center, the institution behind the festival, said it has failed to reach an agreement with the city of Northport about the festival’s funding. In a statement released Wednesday, Kentuck said that on Nov. 16, its 19-member board of directors instructed the organization’s staff to begin the process of finding a new home for upcoming festivals.

According to the center, the annual two-day festival draws up to 20,000 visitors to the city each year and generates an estimated $5 million economic impact.

“It is regrettable that a few city leaders have put us in this position,” said Bobby Bragg, the president of the Kentuck board of directors, in the announcement. “Kentuck and Northport have enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership, but now we’re forced to look at relocating an event that has grown significantly over the years.”

Kentuck said negotiations with Northport city leaders began falling apart when the city moved to change the terms of the agreement for the annual festival. Those changes included decreasing Northport’s funding for the festival and an attempt to change the contract from one year to five years.

“While the city wanted a five-year agreement, it was unwilling to guarantee that we could continue to hold the festival at Kentuck Park for the duration of the agreement, and they were uncommunicative on how the construction would impact the festival during that time,” Bragg said in the statement. “The city wanted us to sign a contract with less funding and no certainty on where future festivals were to be held.”

While the statement doesn’t clarify the type of construction Bragg references, the city of Northport has plans to develop a sports complex near Kentuck Park.

Amy Echols, Kentuck’s executive director, told the Tuscaloosa News it was hard to say how the upcoming construction of the complex would impact the festival grounds.

“Their plans for the sportsplex, I’m told they’re very fluid,” Echols said.

The Tuscaloosa News reports the city offered $80,000 in funding last year. Under the terms of the new contract, the city of Northport offered Kentuck Arts Center $68,000 per year with a promise that the festival would be held in Northport, but with no assurance the location would be in Kentuck Park.

“They gave us a four-day turnaround to sign it, and this was right before the (Oct. 14-15, 2023) festival, before any (Kentuck) board meeting was supposed to take place,” Echols said.

In Wednesday’s statement, Echols said that under normal circumstances, the Kentuck Arts Center would have released the dates for the 2024 festival following the close of this year’s festival, which ran from Oct. 14 to Oct. 15.

“We are not happy about the idea of having to move the festival. Kentuck Park has been its home for so long it is part of the fabric of Northport,” Echols said. “It is unfortunate we have been forced into this position, but if we want to have a Kentuck Festival of the Arts in 2024, we must start planning now.”

The city of Northport on Wednesday released a statement in response, saying while it was “saddened” to hear about Kentuck’s search for a new festival location, attorneys for both Kentuck Center for the Arts and the City of Northport met the week before Thanksgiving to seek a resolution to outstanding issues in the proposed agreements. The statement also said staff continued the discussions as late as the afternoon of Kentuck’s announcement.

“With clarification of the issues as presented by Kentuck, attorneys for the City attempted to get additional information for Kentuck and continued to engage with Council members about the concerns of Kentuck up to, and including, November 28, 2023, with a pledge to get all issues resolved no later than December 11, 2023,” the city said in the statement.

On Thursday morning, Jeff Hogg, the president of the Northport City Council, posted the city’s statement on his Facebook profile, along with his own message addressing Northport’s plans for the sports complex. Hogg said the complex master plan would “enhance” the festival and was certain the disagreement was an “easy fix.”

“I understand that Kentuck Arts got upset that we showed the new renderings for River Run Park at Northport Shore which is our baseball/softball component to our sports complex and they felt that it was taking them out of the equation for their annual festival,’ Hogg wrote. “This is a huge misunderstanding on their part of assuming something without fact finding. The City of Northport is committed to the Kentuck Arts Festival and the area that they use has always been set aside for them. The sports complex Masterplan does not take anything away from them.”

Hogg told AL.com Thursday the city of Northport, to his knowledge, had not heard from Kentuck regarding future negotiations.

“But when we do, the City stands ready to resume contract negotiations and see the festival thrive for another 52 years in our great city,” Hogg told AL.com in an email.

In the email, Hogg also shared a breakdown of revenue numbers, saying Northport’s direct revenue from the festival is around $20,000 compared to the more than $100,000 cost the city incurs to host the event. Out of $68,000 given to the festival, the city would have a net loss of $48,000. An additional $49,000 for police and fire protection would put the city at a net loss of $97,000.

“Then add public works cost and the city has exceeded well over 100k loss for them to have a festival,” Hogg wrote. “But we understand that not everything has to make money to be a quality of life feature for people to experience our city and hopefully generate some indirect taxes at our local merchants.”

Kentuck Art Center did not respond to AL.com’s request for additional comment.