A few feet away from the street-side café tables on Main Street, throngs of colorful papier-mâché puppets and performers entertained a crowd of onlookers tapping along to echoing drumbeats.

While FestiFools has been a prime example of public arts engagement in Ann Arbor since 2006, Sunday’s parade and Friday’s FoolMoon festival were produced with less University support than in previous years. Arriving to Main Street on the heels of last November’s failed Public Arts Millage, arts funding in Ann Arbor and at the University continue to spur discussion.

Marjorie Horton, assistant dean for undergraduate education, said University funds have not been available to sponsor the FestiFools event itself since the 2011-2012 academic year. However, LSA continues to sponsor Art in Public Spaces, the University course that produces much of the content for the festival and parade. The college continues to fund the course’s instructor, studio space and storage of puppets.

In the course, undergraduate students are immersed in public art, including the creation of FestiFools puppets. Additionally, students in the course have created murals in campus buildings, such as the evolution-themed mural in the Undergraduate Science Building produced for the LSA theme semester on evolution in 2006. Students have also participated in set design and construction for public theater productions such as the Burns Park Players.

While LSA no longer funds the actual parade and festival. Through the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, in collaboration with the School of Art & Design and University Housing, two expert puppet-makers from New York City came to campus to work with the students.

Lloyd Hall Scholars Program lecturer Mark Tucker, the founder of FestiFools and instructor of Art in Public Spaces, said for 2013 a group of supportive citizens formed the non-profit WonderFool Productions to cover the significant costs of putting on a town event.

While taking their puppets for a test run outside South Quad Residence Hall on Thursday, LSA sophomores Chene Karega and Alana Weiss Nydorf said it's important for both the University and the city of Ann Arbor to sponsor public arts events such as FestiFools.

“I think it is important for the University to be sponsoring events like this,” Karega said. “It makes us happy; it makes others happy. Arts are important.”

“This is one of those parades and get-togethers that is really representative of what Ann Arbor is all about,” Weiss Nydorf said. “It’s totally foolish, but at the same time there’s a message. FestiFools is another way for people to get to know Ann Arbor and to publicize Ann Arbor, so if it helps the community that much more, then why not fund it?”

The city also plays a role in supporting the event, though in a more indirect way than the University. Tucker said the city waives a portion of FestiFools’ event permit fees using community-event funds, rather than public-art funds, which are in short supply.

Ann Arbor City Council member Sabra Briere (D-Ward 1) said most members of the council would be pleased if they could find a way to financially support public art opportunities, but so far the city has not found an effective approach.

“The city doesn't have a civic theater or civic art space. While some of us would support such an idea in theory, I don't know anyone in local government that would make this more of a priority than fixing streets and sidewalks or hiring more police,” Briere said. “I hate to weigh such things and determine that one is more important than another.”

Briere said if the city could find a creative solution for finding sufficient funding for performance art, she would be “delighted” to support the proposal.

“FestiFools and FoolMoon help create that unique character and interest that any community would seek,” Briere said.

As the chair of the council’s taskforce on public art, Briere is no stranger to these types of discussions.