Council conducts post-mortem on the ITU Festival
ITU Multisport World Festival brought in more than 3,500 athletes from 41 countries, pumping about $8.7 million into local economy
City council is taking the lessons learned from 2017’s ITU Multisport World Festival into the new year.
The festival brought in more than 3,500 athletes from 41 countries and generated an estimated $8.7 million in economic impact for the city.
Challenge Penticton, which has the same organizer as the ITU Festival, Michael Brown, came in around $15,000 under budget, while ITU came in over budget by $22,483.
This left both events combined over budget by $7,379, with $10,000 cash left to be paid to the event by the city.
In total, the city had around $2,600 left to be paid to the event.
Couns. Campbell Watt, Judy Sentes and Max Picton questioned how unused in-kind services (park rentals, catering, RCMP expenses) could be transferred.
“If we didn’t provide a service because we didn’t need to, there’s nothing that needs to change hands there,” Watt said.
The city’s finance manager, Jim Bauer, said the services not required for Challenge led to re-allocating the unused budget from one event to the other.
City manager Peter Weeber added staff shared the concerns of council, but in the first year of the ITU event, there was some flexibility — noting council should be weary of commitments made in the future.
“In this case, our recommendation is flexibility because it was a test run, brought tremendous value to the community, but it is confusing. There’s no need for this discussion if people just do what they agreed to,” Weeber said.
Coun. Helena Konanz wondered if the $110,000 commitment to the Super League Triathlon taking place in August would get paid out to the organizer should all the inkind funds not be used.
Bauer said if there was a desire by the organizer to have the difference of in-kind costs paid out, it is an issue that would have to come before council.
An internal review of the ITU event was conducted by city staff and topping the list of findings and recommendations from the event are concerns regarding route selection, high-traffic roads and emergency medical service vehicles.
Staff is suggesting having city engineers work with event organizers in selecting better routes, adding a short repeating course could limit the span of road closures.
Traffic congestion on the day of the long course race, concerns from businesses regarding closed access, parking, communication and even missing garbage cans from Gyro Park were also on the list of concerns and improvements put forward by city staff.
Council voted unanimously to pay out the remaining cash commitment to the organizer.