Festival organizers say unnamed financier has offered to support event for this year, but changes will be necessary to support the event long-term – including embracing corporate sponsorship
in talks with at least one potential financier to help cover nearly half a million dollars needed to resuscitate this year’s edition, but its board president is warning that the event needs a more permanent strategy for long-term survival amid ballooning costs.that due to rising costs and demands from vendors that some bills be paid up front, they would need to cancel the 2023 edition and consider dissolving the festival’s organizing body altogether.
The Globe and Mail reviewed the festival society’s most recent annual financial statements, and spoke with Zuberbuhler and numerous others who are familiar with the 45-year-old festival’s financial history, as well as the Canadian festival industry more broadly. BothNavigating these economic circumstances is “like tromping through heavy snow and watching for asteroids to hit,” said Marie Zimmerman, executive director of the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont.
The Vancouver Festival Society’s financial statements show that a series of government grants, some of them pandemic-specific, ensured the festival had a surplus going into its July 2022 edition, which featured artists such as Allison Russell, Frazey Ford and the New Pornographers. But this, Zuberbuhler said, was when costs started getting out of hand and vendors began requesting more payments upfront.
In fact, in its open letter last week, the board said the festival’s “financial situation has long been untenable.” Others who were deeply involved in the festival’s history are willing to acknowledge this publicly. “It kept going on even though sometimes it was in debt,” said Gary Cristall, who oversaw the festival for its first 17 years and believes it can survive its latest crisis. The current deficit, he said, is “parking change for a $2-million event.
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