New city-backed festival lacks purpose and vision
The Life and Arts Festival in Kelowna was so bad it’s almost been erased from the internet.
Another big city-sponsored festival planned for August risks becoming just as much of a stinker.
The proposed “Kelowna Made” event lacks a focus and even a reason for being. Except, perhaps, the desire of Kelowna councillors to say they created the festival come election time in October.
It reminds me of the Music ’91 boondoggle staged by the sclerotic Social Credit government in the summer of that year. It was little more than a vote-pandering series of heavily subsidized concerts across the province, with the Penticton shindig ending in a riot, broken windows, and police tear gas.
No such public disorder is likely to be associated with Kelowna Made. Public apathy, more like.
The city’s basic idea, it seems, is to celebrate things that are made in Kelowna. Kelowna is said, according to a description of the festival that went to city councillors on Monday, to be in need of such a festival because we are unique.
“Kelowna is made of nature, heritage, and culture,” a description of the festival states. “It is made of sport, art, music, agriculture, food, and drink. Kelowna is made of valuable traditions.”
This statement is no less true if the word Kelowna is substituted by “Any Place on Earth.”
The bureaucrats and well-meaning volunteers who’ve been planning Kelowna Made seem to have been determined to make it as broadly-appealing as possible. It’s going to be this, this, and the other thing, and wind up being nothing much at all.
Because public money will be used to stage the festival — with details on exactly how much to come later — organizers don’t want to risk offending anyone. So they’ve come up with the most boring idea imaginable, sort of a cross between a garage sale, a flea market, and a concert featuring your neighbour’s kid you’ve been invited to attend.
Real festivals are put on by risk-takers using their own money on a hunch and a hope that what they’ve dreamed up will be so appealing that people will pay good money to attend it.
In Kelowna’s recent history, think Centre of Gravity, the youth-targeted sports and music festival that was wildly successful until, like all such events, it just ran its course and disappeared.
A case can be made that CoG’s successor is Rock the Lake, a boomer-focused outdoor concert that has historically featured aging Cancon rockers like Trooper and Platinum Blonde, but which this year promises to be genuinely offbeat and interesting with Brian Wilson, A Flock of Seagulls, Moist and, well, yes, Trooper.
On a smaller scale, lots of volunteer Kelowna groups put on local events that draw significant numbers, with modest help from the city. In this category, think of the May long weekend’s Knox Mountain Hill Climb, this coming weekend’s Gonzo Okanagan Music Festival, and the ongoing Pride Week festival.
Last Saturday, thousands of people marched from Stuart Park to City Park to show their support for the LGBTQIA2S+ community, then stayed in the park for hours for a festival with real purpose, energy, and excitement.
Given the existing vibrancy of Kelowna’s arts, entertainment, and cultural scene, it’s not at all clear why City Hall thinks residents are desperate for a “Signature Event” to liven up their summer. This must truly be a municipality that doesn’t know how to spend all the money it rakes in, if they’ve come up with an anodyne festival no one asked for.
At least the ill-fated Arts and Life Festival had something of a cogent theme — a celebration of artsy things. But it too was conceived by the city, had a scattershot approach that defied simple understanding, and ended up fizzling out after an underwhelming five year run from 2004-08 that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A Google search using the terms Life and Arts Festival City of Kelowna produces only a handful of event-specific results, most of which are old city documents.
There’s a similar Kelowna-made black hole already taking shape for the city’s newest festival.