Update, July 5: The first Fort Reno show of 2016 is scheduled for Thursday, July 7, according to an invitation posted on Facebook. Title Tracks, Bad Moves and Strange Avenger will perform. Dot Dash, The Delarcos and Nine to Five are scheduled to play the park Monday, July 11, and The Rememberables, Psychic Subcreatures and The Luau Cinders are booked for Thursday, July 14.

Original post:

After two years of stumbles, Fort Reno summer concerts are set to return in July, according to a message posted on the series’ website.

Shows in the Northwest D.C. park will take place Monday and Thursday evenings as usual, but no schedule has been posted. Submissions from bands interested in playing this year will be accepted through May 31, the website says.

Fort Reno shows have faced uncertainty since 2014, when the National Park Service began requiring U.S. Park Police officers at every gig. Security expenses threatened to drain Fort Reno’s concert budget, said organizer Amanda MacKaye, jeopardizing the nearly 50-year-old concert series. MacKaye began soliciting donations to support concerts at Fort Reno in 2015.

The summer series appeared to be in trouble again this year, after Washingtonian found that MacKaye had not filed a permit application with the National Park Service for 2016. But in an email to Bandwidth, MacKaye said she intended to resume gigs at the park.

“Things are just moving slower on my end,” the organizer wrote.

MacKaye is still accepting donations for the Fort Reno concert series via the Washington Peace Center.

Photo by Flickr user Lewis Francis used under a Creative Commons license. 

As Washingtonian reported last week, Fort Reno organizer Amanda MacKaye still has not filed a permit application to the National Park Service, raising questions about whether she plans to book any shows in the federally controlled park this summer. MacKaye also has not solicited music submissions, which she usually does earlier in the year, Washingtonian points out.

But MacKaye says Fort Reno fans have no reason to worry yet. “There is no story here,” she writes in a brief email to WAMU. “It would appear on the Internet that liberty has been taken to create a controversy where there is none. Things are just moving slower on my end.”

MacKaye still has time to submit a permit application for use of the Tenleytown park this summer, says a National Park Service spokesperson.

“She can submit the application at least 48 hours in advance of the proposed event,” the spokesperson says, though it’s wiser to apply earlier. She adds that MacKaye has been in touch with NPS permit office staff.

For the last two years, the 48-year-old public concert series has faced insecurity after the National Park Service began requiring that a U.S. Park Police officer monitor each concert — a standard requirement that may have been overlooked in the past, a spokesperson said at the time.

MacKaye initially responded by calling off Fort Reno’s 2014 season, saying the $2,640 security fee outstripped Fort Reno’s budget. In 2015, she asked for donations to help defray the cost of a Park Police officer.

Both concert seasons ultimately survived.

Photo by Flickr user Mike Maguire used under a Creative Commons license.

Last year, new requirements from the National Park Service almost shelved the annual concert series at Fort Reno park in Northwest D.C. Now the popular series is facing the same trouble — and asking the public for help.

A message posted on fortreno.com says that, like last year, the National Park Service and U.S. Park Police are asking that Fort Reno pay for park police to staff each concert in Tenleytown, and they need donations to help cover the fee.

“I shudder at having to write that because it makes the concert series appear like an unsafe environment — something it definitely is not,” says the series’ website. “I had hoped that our peaceful series in 2014 would have changed minds, or that I could — but alas, here we are.”

That hope may have been misguided. According a spokesperson for the National Park Service, last year’s Fort Reno concerts led to “12 incidents requiring law enforcement, ranging from illegal vending to drug and alcohol issues.”

Plus, it doesn’t sound like Fort Reno was in a position to avoid the police fee in the first place. The NPS spokesperson says Fort Reno organizers knew about the fee at least since February, when they met with NPS and U.S. Park Police to discuss this year’s concerts.

Last year, Fort Reno booker Amanda MacKaye announced she was canceling the concert series in light of the newly required fee, which totaled $2,640, outstripping Fort Reno’s annual budget. (That expense has risen slightly since: It used to cost $66 per hour to hire Park Police to staff events like Fort Reno concerts. Now it costs $70 per hour, according to NPS.)

MacKaye eventually met with representatives from the Park Service and U.S. Park Police — later appearing on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show — and last year’s concerts were un-canceled. But the feds didn’t relieve Fort Reno of the police fee.

“One of the primary goals in permitting any event is to ensure public safety,” writes the NPS spokesperson in an email. “These fees are standard practice for many permitted special events.”

Concerts on federal parkland in D.C. are generally required to pay for U.S. Park Police security.

According to Fort Reno’s website, 21 local bands have been scheduled to play the park this summer.

MacKaye has not returned multiple requests for comment.

Photo: Hardcore band Give plays the 2014 Fort Reno concert series

That news came today after a meeting between organizer Amanda MacKaye, the National Park Service, and U.S. Park Police. Afterward, MacKaye, Park Police Lt. Allan Griffith and Rock Creek Superintendent Tara Morrison stopped by WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show to announce the latest.

“Sitting around the table face to face, we were able to work through the issues and resolve it,” Morrison said on the show this afternoon.

In comments both off- and on-air, Griffith and Morrison said both the National Park Service and U.S. Park Police need to implement changes to make sure that Fort Reno and other D.C. concert series on federal parkland go through a more navigable process in the future.

Fort Reno still has to pay for officers to staff its concerts, which is the last-minute requirement that prompted MacKaye to call off the series Thursday. But that money—$66 an hour, at a minimum of five hours per event—no longer has to be paid in a lump sum upfront. (Previously the Park Police had sent MacKaye an invoice for the total amount of $2,640.)

On Kojo Nnamdi’s show this morning, MacKaye said she wouldn’t even consider seeking sponsorships for the proudly independent shows. “Growing up in the D.C. punk scene… it’s in my blood,” she said. “I cannot sell out the music.”

The eight-concert series is scheduled to begin on July 7, weather permitting, as usual. Bandwidth will post the schedule when it’s available. Update, July 1: The schedule has been posted.

Photo by Flickr user Valerie Hinojosa used under a Creative Commons license.

Due to a reporting error, the original version of this post inaccurately said Fort Reno is an eight-week series. It should have said eight-concert series; there are only eight shows over four weeks.

Now D.C. Shadow Senator Paul Strauss is tossing his hat into the ring and pulling together a meeting with MacKaye, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Park Police, with the hope of saving the series.

MacKaye says she is scheduled to meet with Strauss and representatives from both bodies on Monday. Sen. Strauss—who volunteered at Fort Reno in the 1980s and 1990s—calls the meeting “very preliminary,” but “a good positive step.”

“My job is to navigate issues where the federal government involves the rights of D.C. residents,” he says. He calls Fort Reno’s present quandary part of an “interesting evolution,” because the D.C. government once helped pay for music events at the federally controlled park. Now, he says, the federal government would rather charge the concerts’ organizers for what he considers a public service.

Thursday, U.S. Park Police released a short statement on Fort Reno, saying “The NPS and USPP are reviewing the details of previous permits and previous law enforcement needs related to the concert series. Our primary goal is public safety. Both the NPS and USPP recognize the importance of the concerts to the community and look forward to further discussions with the permit applicant.”

Below, read a letter that Rep. Van Hollen’s office sent to Elaine Hackett—the congressional liaison at the U.S. Department of the Interior—addressing the concert series’ cancellation.

Van Hollen Fort Reno Concert Letter

Photo of The Evens at Fort Reno by Flickr user ann gav used under a Creative Commons license.