Anyone planning a festival, race, wedding or church gathering on St. Augustine city property will pay more starting Oct. 1, and at Francis Field they will pay based on the clock instead of the crowd. City commissioners voted unanimously on Aug. 25 to adopt an updated special-events manual that rewrites how permits are priced, how venues are booked, and when organizers can be told to run shuttles.
The Francis Field change is the biggest one. Rentals used to be priced off an organizer's expected attendance. Now they are priced off how long the field is tied up, setup included.
| Francis Field use | Fee |
|---|---|
| Up to 4 hours | $300 |
| Over 4 to 8 hours | $750 |
| More than 8 hours | $1,500 |
| Each setup or breakdown day | $500 |
Organizers also put down a deposit equal to half the rental fee. Community Services Director Jamie Perkins told commissioners the point is predictability: under the old model, a host could not know the final bill until the gate count came in, and sometimes never confirmed a count at all. Time is easier to nail down than attendance.
What every permit now costs
The base special-event permit application fee goes from $35 to $50. Parade and athletic-event permits go from $50 to $75, which touches every 5K, procession and charity walk that uses a city street. Renting the gazebo at the Plaza de la Constitución rises from $225 to $285.
Eddie Vickers Park gets a new set of rules rather than just a new price. The event lawn there will be available on Saturdays only. A private event costs $150. A public or ticketed event costs $300. The park's renovated gazebo rents for $25 for four hours, which is the cheapest booking in the new manual by a wide margin.
Perkins said the fees were built around what the city actually spends on an event: public safety, cleanup, electricity and water. She was blunt that the city is not in the business of making money off permits.
Francis Field goes dark for all of May
The manual blocks out Francis Field for the entire month of May. That is because the Live Wildly Sing Out Loud Festival is moving off its longtime September dates and into May, and Perkins said the festival needs the full month to build its infrastructure and tear it back down. It is a big, heavily attended concert, and the field cannot host anything else around it.
For any group that has historically leaned on Francis Field in the spring, that is a hard scheduling wall. Plan around it.
Commissioners also flagged a second calendar problem: the CPS Festival at the Mission Grounds. Those dates move by two or three weeks from year to year because they hinge on when a traveling carnival is available. Staff said they will block out Francis Field once CPS announces, assuming the field is still open by then.
The shuttle and parking trigger, spelled out
The updated manual also puts a number on when organizers can be required to provide satellite parking and shuttle service for vendors and volunteers. The trigger is an event on Francis Field or in city rights-of-way that has historically caused two closures of the Historic Downtown Parking Facility lasting more than eight hours, or three closures of any length.
Events that hit that threshold can also be asked to help fund a city-run parking and transit plan, plus traffic-management costs: police, barricades, cones and related services.
Perkins said the shuttle and park-and-ride requirement is not new. Something like it has been on the books for roughly a decade. What the old manual never made clear was when it kicked in, so organizers could not tell whether it applied to them until late in their planning. The new language draws the line in advance.
What to do before Oct. 1
The current fee schedule holds until Sept. 30. Applications filed after the new manual takes effect fall under the new numbers and the new Francis Field and Eddie Vickers rules. Groups working on spring 2027 events, particularly anything that was penciled in for Francis Field in May, should re-check the city calendar before printing a date on a flyer. Venue and permit information is posted through the City of St. Augustine's permits page.
For more coverage of city decisions that hit local budgets and calendars, browse our government and politics stories and our events coverage at St. Augustine Community Website.
Planning an event under the new rules, or think the new Francis Field pricing helps or hurts your group? Join the conversation in our Community Forum.
Header photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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