Discussion about the Geneva Chamber of Commerce and the city regarding funding and festivals is expected at 7 p.m. Monday, May 11, at a special Committee of the Whole regarding the Destination Geneva Grant Program.

Instead of the city making an outright payment to help fund Chamber-hosted festivals, as the city has done in the past, the Chamber would apply for a grant, with reimbursements up to $10,000 per event until all of the funds are expended. Final action would be at the May 18 regular Council meeting.

City officials also posted FAQs on the city’s website to address the various issues – including city funding, its now-defunct 30-year agreement with the chamber from 1994 to 2024, its plan to go to a grant program instead of straight-up funding to the Chamber and the city’s agreement with the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In a May 1 email to members, Chamber President Paula Schmidt wrote that during an audit of records from 2019 to 2023, “a small number of administrative errors were identified.”

“Following the audit, the total discrepancy identified was $76.82, which remains in our separate hotel/motel account,” according to Schmidt’s email.

But the city’s online FAQ asserts the Chamber’s own numbers are contradictory about its funds and expenses with regards to its four annual festivals – Swedish Days, Art Fair, Festival of the Vine and Christmas Walk.

“Chamber leaders have stated that festivals need City funding to remain sustainable and have requested $150,000 in 2026 festival funding in addition to in-kind services,” according to the FAQ. “The Chamber provided the City with a list marked ‘not an all-inclusive list of expenses’ of 2025 festival expenses that totaled $167,391. The letter that accompanied that list relayed that, in 2025, the Chamber spent $654,654 on festivals, a difference of $487,263. Very minimal information has been provided about festival revenues.”

Other than funding, a major issue is festival attendance.

In comments at an April 20 Committee of the Whole meeting, Mayor Kevin Burns said the Chamber sold sponsorships for $9,900 based on assertions that the Swedish Days festival draws 200,000 people, that 40,000 come to Festival of the Vine and the Arts Fair draws 25,000.

Burns said geofencing data shows Swedish Days alone has not had more than 70,000 people in a single year since 2019, and challenged the Chamber’s claims for its other festivals’ attendance.

The city contracts with Placer.AI, which measures visitor and visits when people enter the specific areas, documents show.

For example, in 2025, Placer.AI logged less than 42,000 for Swedish Days; 14,999 for the Art Fair; 14,105 for Festival of the Vine; and 16,401 for Christmas Walk, records show.

The Chamber’s website says that more than 400,000 attend its “events and festivals.” On the same sponsorship page, it says “our festivals bring more than 1 million visitors to Geneva each year!”

Until recently, the sponsorship page also claimed more than 200,000 visitors attended Swedish Days, which used to be a six-day festival, but is now a five-day festival, June 24-28.

Chamber Board Chairman Michael Olesen said in letters to the city regarding the ongoing funding dispute that 10,000 people per day attend Swedish Days. For a five-day festival that’s 50,000 people, not what the Chamber’s website claims.

In a May 4, letter to the City Council, Olesen wrote that Burns relied on information from the Chamber’s IRS Form 990 to question its festival attendance.

“The information on these forms is not correct,” Olesen wrote. “I have learned that these numbers date back to the days of [a previous Chamber president]. The fact that no one looked at, questioned, or corrected this information is an example of my previously mentioned problems at the Chamber.”

The Chamber website’s sponsorship page also claims over 9 million hits to its website each year – another part of the website claims more than 22 million views per year to promote a banner advertisement.

Email responses to requests for comment about the website discrepancies from Olesen and Schmidt both said they were out of town.

Olesen restated the 10,000-per-day estimate for Swedish Days. Schmidt had an automatic reply stating she was out of town until May 13 and would have limited access to email.

To be a presenting sponsor for Festival of the Vine costs $10,000 and includes a logo in Shaw Media’s special section as well as on the Chamber’s promotions and 15,000 emails, according to its promotional materials.

To be a presenting stage sponsor for Festival of the Vine is $5,500, which includes a banner with name and logo on the main entertainment stage, also according to its promotional materials.

To be a ticket sponsor cost $2,000 to have a business’s logo and QR code “on 200,000+ food and drink tickets” and on the Flavor Fare fence; to be a wristband sponsor also cost $2,000 to have a business’s logo and QR code on “10,00+ wristbands,” according to the Chamber’s promotional materials.

The Chamber’s charitable organization statement to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office lists its sponsorship revenue as $166,640 in 2022; $187,532 in 2023; and $208,960 in 2024.