Norris Wiggins

Deerfield Beach's 2010 Mango Festival: How a Disaster Blew Up

Deerfield City Manager: Don't Blame Mango Meltdown on Us

Since last week, Deerfield Beach city officials have been trying to debunk a storyline being advanced by embattled Commissioner Sylvia Poiter, who insists that the city is to blame for the failure of the June 19-20 Mango Festival, not her nor her fellow festival organizers.But every time the city ha ... More >>

Sylvia Poitier Wants New Mango Festival in October

Photo: Deerfield-Beach.comPoitier​In a talk radio appearance Sunday afternoon night, Deerfield Beach Commissioner Sylvia Poitier said that she and other organizers for the city's Mango Festival were planning to stage a new event in October, after poor planning and financial failings doomed the Man ... More >>

Promoter Talks About What Went Wrong at Mango Festival

The always excellent Elgin Jones of the South Florida Times landed a video interview of Norris Wiggins, the promoter the ill-fated 2010 Mango Festival, which failed to deliver musical acts or to sell enough tickets to satisfy sponsors and vendors.As you can see, Wiggins ducked the question about wh ... More >>

A Numbers Game: Did Mango Festival Organizers Inflate Attendance Figures to Sell Vending Booths?

Promotional photos like this one had Mango Festival sponsors and vendors planning for a big crowd.​Even before last weekend's Deerfield Beach Mango Festival failed, there were signs of a bait-and-switch.Organizers of the festival lured sponsors and vendors on the basis that the event would draw so ... More >>

Vendor Tells of Mango Festival Ghost Town

Photo: Tim FosterPhoto taken at 7:45 Saturday, when the Mango Festival was supposed to be entering its peak.​Big John's Pickled Sausage was one of the local businesses that took a leap of faith with the Mango Festival. Not only would the company's vice presidents, Jon and Tim Foster, buy a booth f ... More >>

Mango Festival Promoter Scrambling to Meet With Financial Backers; Claims Tickets Will Be Refunded

Norris Wiggins, promoter of Deerfield Beach's Mango Festival, has a day of meetings planned with what he called the festival's "financial backers" to see about paying the many debts accumulated by this weekend's disastrous event."It was a challenge," says Wiggins of the Mango Festival, which failed ... More >>

More Details on Mango Mess

Flickr: unclefuzThis image of a crushed mango seems to suit the occasion.​Of the Mango Festival's two major financial backers, only one came through with funding, according to a well-placed source with knowledge of the event. The failure of the other financial backer to follow through on his spons ... More >>

Eyewitness Account of Mango Madness

Photo: Sabine RaymonvilBefore the Mango went bad...​A freelance reporter, Sabine Raymonvil, attended the Deerfield Beach Mango Festival Saturday. She agreed to share her account with Juice readers:At approximately 3:15 p.m., after the first performance was to begin, Harold Cummings, CEO of Drumme ... More >>

Mango Festival This Weekend Clouded by Questions

Photo: The Mango Festival​Maybe Deerfield Beach's Mango Festival has learned something from the promoters of Hollywood's major awards shows: that the possibility of a spectacular gaffe or wild, unscripted moment is the key to building suspense and thus, public interest.Because this 25th anniversar ... More >>

Deerfield Beach Mango Festival Claims Broward Sheriff Sponsorship; BSO Denies

Photo: Mango Festival​In what's becoming an annual tradition, the Deerfield Beach Mango Festival is exaggerating the role that the Broward Sheriff's Office has at the June event.Last year event organizers claimed that BSO deputies ensured that cash collected at the gates wasn't skimmed. BSO contra ... More >>