Bee Cave, Travis County, Texas
Thanks to the Municipal Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT), Bee Cave is transforming into a city that values and promotes the arts and culture. Here’s a real success story about how arts, municipal, hotel and tourism leaders working together established the first HOT-for-the-arts program with the Bee Cave Arts Foundation as the delegated authority. “It really feels wonderful to have money to support artists and do something great for your community at the same time.”
In the early 1990s, Bee Cave was a small city of 200 people on the West side of Austin. Since that time, it has become one of the fastest growing areas around. Bee Cave now has over 10,000 residents, two hotels, (with two more building soon), and many retail centers to fill up the 6 square miles that make up the City of Bee Cave.
In 2009, the Bee Cave Arts Foundation was founded as the first non-profit 501(c)(3) arts organization in Bee Cave. Our mission is to improve the quality of life in our community and enhance the experience of visitors by bringing awareness, education, and integrations of a wide range of art throughout public spaces. We established the Bee Cave Sculpture Park in 2011 as a free outdoor public art space featuring the work of several dozen Texas Artists.
In 2018 the BCAF moved into its first brick and mortar space next to City Hall. Here we began hosting art exhibitions, classes for adults and children, Summer Art Camp and ongoing Community Service activities.
In 2016 the City of Bee Cave started to collect the Hotel Occupancy Tax and in 2019 the first Arts project funding was awarded to The Lake Travis Film Festival. They hosted their first annual four-day festival featuring over 80 films, at 4 venues, with artist Q&A’s, evening parties, art exhibitions, and an award ceremony funding a young filmmakers scholarship program. The event was a huge success and set the foundation for the HOT funding and granting program for the Arts in Bee Cave.
Being the City’s longest established arts nonprofit organization, the BCAF presented the idea of becoming the Delegating Authority for the HOT Funds for the Arts to the City Manager and Council. The first thing we did was reach out to Texans for the Arts for guidance on how to work with our City leadership. Over the next months Texans for the Arts staff, with the help of a pro bono lawyer and accountant, helped us navigate meetings with municipal leaders, draft and review contractual language of this new venture, and make the case for using HOT for the arts with BCAF as the delegated authority.
In 2019 the City Council approved the Bee Cave Arts Foundation as the Delegating Authority for the HOT funds for the arts in Bee Cave and the creation of the Bee Cave Arts Commission to review service contracts submitted for these funds.
Now in its second year, the HOT money will fund the Second Annual Lake Travis Film Festival and the First Annual Bee Cave BUZZFEST, a three-night free outdoor community event for all ages featuring light installations, Cirque du Soleil performances and work by nationally acclaimed artists.
The events funded by the HOT money for the Arts has met and exceeded every expectation that was presented. The Inaugural Film Festival brought in actors, producers, film makers and audiences from around the world and nation to The City of Bee Cave providing artistic endeavors and experiences that successfully paved the path for years to come.
The BUZZFEST is a free event for all ages showcasing the magical medium of light art through interactive experiences, video projections, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, music and multimedia installations, as well as live performances. Local Arts Groups are partnering to provide creative spaces for the tech art and educational opportunities and is an example of how projects such as these drive tourism and build community.
Tips for presenting to your City Council:
One thing I heard a city council member say was how much she loved our PowerPoint presentations. Use visually appealing presentations to help inform and support artistic endeavors.
I think city council members are always looking at serious maps, and documents. It is refreshing to have a positive beautiful presentation that is all about making our community a better place.
The first presentation shows the BCAF accomplishments and information relevant to appointing the BCAF as the Delegating Authority for the HOT funds.
The second presentation shows the two applications for the HOT funds and gets Council excited about the ideas!
The presentations were extremely well received by council and quoted to be particularly helpful in illustrating and explaining the proposals. One council member told me after the meeting that we should of asked for more money that all the council members were talking afterwards about how excited they were for the event.
“Thank you Texans for the Arts” for giving us the self-confidence and guidance to pursue this.