The Next Night Street Festival has been put on hiatus following a decision by the Beverly Hills City Council. The determination was made at a special Study Session on June 5 during which the council heard a proposal for the city’s operating and capital improvement budgets for fiscal year 2025-26.
Much of the session’s conversation centered on predicted deficits to the city’s General Fund, which are expected to occur from fiscal year 2026-27 through 2028-29.
According to city staff, the fund will face a deficit of $18.5 million in 2026-27, $20.1 million in 2027-28 and $5.4 million in 2028-29.
In fiscal year 2025-26, the city expects a surplus of $1.7 million.
City staff stressed the impact of the current domestic and international economic climate when it comes to financial planning, including inflation, escalating tariffs and local labor negotiations.
“There is certainly more uncertainty this year than in the past couple of years, due to a number of factors,” said City Manager Nancy Hunt-Coffey. “We are facing years of some substantial deficit … this current fiscal year, we have begun taking steps to reduce costs. Those will accelerate next year.”
Among the items on which city staff sought direction from the council was funding for the Next Night Street Festival. Organizers of the event, which is held annually, requested a total of $230,000 from the city to fund the one-night event. Of that funding, $80,000 was already in the budget, and the remaining $150,000 was requested as an enhancement to match the amount that was spent on Next Night in 2024.
Several members of the public wrote in to express their support for the funding request, including members of the Next Beverly Hills Committee, which organizes the event.
“Next Night has become a beloved annual tradition that brings together community members of all ages in a joyful, inclusive celebration,” wrote Ellen Labbé, the committee’s chair. “Over the years, we’ve thoughtfully refined and grown this event, and it continues to reflect the spirit and vibrancy of our city … I respectfully urge council to accept this funding request.”
After hearing from staff about the expected budget shortfalls as well as the comparative costs of other events put on by the city, Mayor Sharona Nazarian, Vice Mayor John Mirisch and Councilmember Craig Corman requested that funding for Next Night be potentially allocated elsewhere.
“I agree that it’s a great community builder, but I do think that it’s been taken out of proportion,” said Nazarian. “We just got a number that’s alarming. We spend only, only, only $51,000 for 12 weeks of summer programming that includes our seniors and our families with children … for us to spend $230,000, plus staff overtime, I just don’t know if that’s enough of a bang for our buck.”
Corman reiterated Nazarian’s sentiment that the event has grown exponentially in recent years.
“When you look at the budget for [Next Night], historically it started out as a much smaller event,” he said. “It grew, and then it grew pretty significantly a couple of years ago … I like the event, I think a lot of people in the community like the event, but it is expensive. It’s $230,000 that we don’t need to spend.”
Councilmembers Mary Wells and Lester Friedman expressed support for the event; however Wells noted that it could be scaled back.
“It is a huge community-building event, and so I don’t think it should go away entirely … perhaps you can combine it or make it smaller,” she said.
At the Study Session, councilmembers also expressed their support for the addition of six community service officers and related equipment and vehicles for increased security at the upcoming La Cienega Metro Station, as well as funding for a nexus study to establish development impact fees to address community impacts caused by new development.
Nazarian ended the June 5 Study Session by challenging city staff to “think outside of the box.”
“We need to make sure to move forward with caution in the years ahead … we don’t want to just keep funding the same projects year after year without any questions,” she said. “We want to make sure that every project is justified, it’s necessary, it’s timely and it also aligns with our community’s needs and priorities.”
The council will review the operating and capital improvement budgets once more on June 17 for final approval.
