Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Cowboy Festival Lassos Both Praise and Profits : Newhall: Sold-out poetry and music event at Melody Ranch wins converts after last year’s successful debut.

The local Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival debuted just last year, but its success already has former skeptics doffing their hats to the event.

The three-day event returns Friday to Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio in Newhall. All of this year’s nearly 2,500 tickets--ranging from $10 for an evening dance to $60 for a morning horseback ride and breakfast--have been sold.

Even before the all-important merchandise sales during the festival, the event has already covered most of its $109,000 budget, according to festival organizer Cecilia Burda.

The city has received $60,000 in sponsorships, $41,000 from ticket sales and $1,500 from pre-ordered merchandise sales, she said.

The festival’s financial success is not limited to the boundaries of Melody Ranch. Last year, a survey showed that the average festival attendee spent more than $81 in the Santa Clarita Valley. Multiplied by the nearly 2,000 ticket-holders and estimated 1,000 others who attended events not requiring a ticket, last year’s festival pumped about $244,000 into the local economy.

But before the first festival, the city-sponsored event was criticized by numerous residents. Why pay for cowboy poetry, they asked, when new roads and other worthy projects went unfunded.

“When it was first proposed, my concern was that among the infinite amount of choices the City Council had to spend their money on, was this going to provide a good return on their investment?” said Allan Cameron, a longtime council watchdog. “I ask that question about a lot of city expenditures.”

Burda, who is the city’s special projects coordinator, came up with the idea of having the festival. Last year, she couldn’t find many wholehearted supporters.

“I did a lot of ‘trust me,’ ” Burda said.

She no longer has to go on trust, alone.

“How can people argue with a sold-out event?” said Burda. “Somebody out there likes this stuff.”

Cameron has certainly come around. “I am not an aficionado of cowboy poetry myself,” he said. “(But) if it makes a return for the taxpayers and there are enough taxpayers who don’t mind it, who am I to be a naysayer?”

Burda said the benefits were more than financial. After last year’s festival, dozens of letters arrived in praise of the program, she said.

“Somewhere not too deep inside of us, we all wish to walk the streets of old Dodge City, Tombstone or San Antonio,” wrote one visitor. “We were transported to a world of make-believe and family entertainment. No one there was thinking about earthquakes, homicides or carjackings.”

This year’s festival will include readings by poets Waddie Mitchell, Buck Ramsey, Glenn Ohrlin, Virginia Bennett, Peggy Godfrey and Wallace McRae, and music concerts by Ian Tyson, Don Edwards, Riders In the Sky and Sons of the San Joaquin. The festival also will feature cowboy gear shows, a dance and the breakfast trail ride.