Council will be asked to scrap failing festival

Ron Seymour 2009-11-21 Kelowna Daily Courier:

Dismal attendance and heavy financial losses look to have done in the Kelowna Music and Arts Festival. The city-supported festival should be scrapped next year, council will hear Monday, since this past summer‘s edition was a money-losing bust that failed to gain community support.
About 3,000 people bought tickets to the three-day festival, far below the 8,000 organizers were hoping for. Even after funds were shifted from other accounts to cover losses, the festival‘s deficit was $73,000. “Despite a strong marketing campaign resulting in increased awareness and a diverse lineup of well-known performing artists, attendance was significantly lower than anticipated,” reads part of a report to council by Festivals Kelowna, a city-funded agency. “Therefore, the Festivals Kelowna board of directors, in consultation with city staff, have decided to discontinue the Kelowna Music and Arts Festival.”

If council accepts the report, city funding for Festivals Kelowna in 2010 would be reduced from the $345,000 it received this year to $245,000. The intention is to apply the $100,000 difference to other arts and cultural events. The report to council blames a number of factors for the failure of the Music and Arts Festival, such as bad weather, the poor economy and the tourism-dampening effect of the West Kelowna fires. Sponsorships were down by 70 per cent compared to 2008, and the number of visual artists who participated in the festival dropped by 40 per cent from last year. Some commercial vendors who rented space at the festival, which ran from July 24 to 26, said they didn‘t even made back their booking fees. “My registration fee was $450, plus $200 for power, and I haven‘t even made a hundred bucks here,” vendor Peter Deppe said on the last day of the festival. The event had previously been known as the Life and Arts Festival, and was held in May. It was switched to mid-summer, and its focus changed to include more musicians in hopes of drawing bigger crowds. Festivals Kelowna also operates the Parks Alive program and the Canada Day festival, neither of which are affected by the recommendation to scrap the Music and Arts Festival.