Devil's advocate: There's a big reason why a springtime festival for New Albany won't float.

In yesterday’s posting about the past weekend’s folk festival in Madison, I appended “civic cooperation” to the list of search terms. This was done so intentionally.

Madison's successful Ohio River Valley Folk Festival is a model, but ya gotta want to emulate it.

In the perky discussion that followed, several perfectly reasonable ideas were lofted, and these might be summarized as a collective interest in a springtime festival celebrating New Albany’s river connections and history, with added dimensions of unity and diversity. There was a listing of steps to take toward inaugurating such an event, and one comment (by John Alton) stood out, at least to me:

Third, you plan by example. The Harvest Homecoming is one of the most successful festivals in Indiana, and it is a perfect blueprint to follow. It gained its status through great planning, hard work and dedication. A Spring Festival that celebrates our history as a city ... and why we are even a city ... deserves no less.

True ... and not so easy.

Of course, all of us know that if there is to be another public celebration in New Albany, it isn’t going to be in late summer or fall, because that’s Harvest Homecoming’s time of the year. Have you ever wondered if Harvest Homecoming's scale actually precludes other efforts in the same vein?

Yes, there’s already a one-day 4th of July fireworks display along the waterfront. Other than that, whether for reasons of non-funding or lack of imagination on the part of the management, the riverside facilities we have are chronically, and seemingly perpetually, underutilized.

Perhaps not all readers know that for a few years prior to 2007, when it has disappeared into limbo, there was a Develop New Albany-sponsored springtime festival downtown called Da Vinci. There are many reasons why Da Vinci was an idea whose time never came, with non-funding and lack of imagination (is there a deep scratch on this LP?) being just two, although maybe it was a just one of those notions before its time.

As downtown revives, there may be another chance to attempt something that begins small, with annual growth potential.

To my mind, here’s the central question:

Is Harvest Homecoming too big for there to be another festival that might be viewed as competing for scant community resources?

Ideas we surely have, and in abundance, but money and volunteer labor are two commodities in much, much shorter supply. Currently these are directed toward Harvest Homecoming, which possesses its own internal and self-perpetuating set of rationales and objectives. For what it is, it’s a wonderful thing.

But as my councilman might say, it is what it is.

Put simply, and in terms of New Albany’s willingness and ability to fund and manage an outreach to the remainder of the world, there is neither an institutional nor a strategic counterweight to the annual pre-eminence of Harvest Homecoming

Contrast this to Madison, where it would appear that in matters of events pertaining to the imperative of providing entertainment for the citizenry while also pulling in money from visitors, there is a shared sense of purpose, pooled resources, and cohesion … and a half-dozen annual events from which to choose.

As my councilman also might say, that’s not putting all the eggs in one basket. It seems to work for Madison.

Meanwhile, New Albany has Harvest Homecoming. We appear to be content with that, so it isn’t realistic to expect short term changes.

In other words, if we're to work our side of the street as directed, we're going to have to be thinking way outside the box.

And that isn't something for which this city is celebrated.