Why are so many Canadian festivals struggling or cancelling?

Some of Canada's most iconic festivals are can‐ celling or scaling back this year as they weather finan‐ cial struggles.

Festival organizers say they are still recouping losses from COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns while they con‐ tend with inflation, increased competition and a loss of corporate sponsors.

It costs 30 to 40 per cent more to organize a festival this year than it did in 2019, according to Martin Roy, ex‐ ecutive director of Festivals and Major Events Canada, and revenues are not follow‐ ing suit.

He noted that many pop‐ ular festivals are free to the public, which affects them further.

"The sponsors and the grants are not increasing at the same pace as the ex‐ penses. So there's a huge problem there. It's a basic mathematical problem."

Fewer laughs, bigger problems

The Just for Laughs comedy festival announced in March it would cancel its long-running event in Mon‐ treal and Toronto this sum‐ mer, laying off 75 employees. It cited reasons including pandemic-related lost rev‐ enues and reduced network budgets.

It sparked concerns across the country and high‐ lighted a number of other festivals facing similar strug‐ gles.

Sponsors are also pulling out and taking their money with them. Bell, for example, pulled out of the Toronto In‐ ternational Film Festival (TIFF) last year after 28 years, providing millions as its lead‐ ing sponsor. TIFF cut 12 em‐ ployees in December, citing effects from the pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike.

More events has also meant more competition for available funds.

"I've never seen such a sit‐ uation," Roy said.

"I can sense that everywhere in Canada."

The president of Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary festival, re‐ cently said this year's event could be its last without a boost in funding. Marie Nel‐ son said the Toronto festival, launching April 25, is expand‐ ing to become more of a "cul‐ it's tural hub," with events like author talks, but is still feel‐ ing a "hangover" from the pandemic.

"The bottom line is that when you have all of these deficits that you're carrying with you, it's like we're grow‐ ing and we can see the plane taking off, but we're just run‐ ning out of runway," she said.

Hot Docs also saw a mass exodus of programmers and its artistic director shortly af‐ ter its announcement.

Toronto's Taste of the Danforth street festival was cancelled this year, too, with organizers citing a lack of funding.

Hiatuses and near-can‐ cellations

Edmonton's Fringe The‐ atre Festival, the biggest and longest-running fringe festi‐ val in North America, issued a plea for donations in March and is considering scaling back its outdoor site by about one-third; Toronto's and Vancouver's fringe festi‐ vals made similar announce‐ ments.

Edmonton Fringe director Megan Dart says she is con‐ sidering increasing service fees for tickets, though 100 per cent of the base ticket price has always gone to artists, and that tradition will continue. She says it's still re‐ covering from a $3-million loss after having to cancel the 2020 festival.

"Based on industry in‐ sights, what was previously believed to be a three- to five-year recovery window in the arts is now being esti‐ mated at a 10-year post-pan‐ demic rebuild," Dart previ‐ ously told CBC.

The Regina Folk Festival is going on hiatus in 2024 after saying it was facing a serious financial crisis, while the Van‐ couver folk fest was rescued from cancellation at the last minute last year by a B.C. government grant.

Stagnant federal fund‐ ing

Losing festivals also means losing revenues for host cities and provinces. Just for Laughs, for example, commissioned a study in 2017 that suggested its festi‐ val was adding $34 million annually to Quebec's GDP.

Quebec boosted funding for its festival aid program in 2022, adding $85 million over three years, but the base budgets for the federal pro‐ grams have sat at a com‐ bined $50.2 million since 2008, leaving a growing num‐ ber of festivals to compete for smaller portions of fund‐ ing.

Canada began injecting an additional $15 million per year into the programs in 2019, but those supplements are set to expire in 2026.

Canadian Heritage is "monitoring the situation closely" and will work with festivals to ensure they "can access other support pro‐ grams" for which they are eli‐ gible, said Minister Pascale St-Onge in an emailed state‐ ment.

A chain reaction

Jill Wilson, arts and life ed‐ itor for the Winnipeg Free Press, says each cancelled festival sets off a chain reac‐ tion because it can prevent performers, like bands, from block-booking across the country, so other cities end up missing out on acts, as well.

Wilson says there has also been a "massive" drop in vol‐ unteers, who help keep these events running.

Festivals in rural Saskatchewan communities in particular have said they are short of festival volun‐ teers, and that they've dwindled significantly since the pandemic.

"I think people's sense of FOMO has really decreased," Wilson said. "They realized, 'Oh, I can miss this event. It's not the end of the world,' af‐ ter the pandemic."

Theatre festival finding success

But some festivals are thriv‐ ing in the post-pandemic en‐ vironment.

Ontario's Stratford Festi‐ val, which does Shake‐ spearean theatre, closed its 2023 season with a small sur‐ plus, according to executive director Anita Gaffney.

Gaffney says the festival's expenses have increased about 25 per cent since 2019, but previous investments like opening the new Tom Patterson Theatre in 2022 have paid off.

"We've made a real prior‐ ity on investing in the pro‐ ductions and investing in having lots on stage. So there's lots of good reasons for people to travel to Strat‐ ford to purchase tickets and to make donations," she said.

While the festival is well established, Gaffney said about 30 per cent of last year's audience was new.

In addition, she credits the festival's digital content unit, which launched during

the pandemic and has con‐ tinued to expand. Stratford also does outreach events in major markets in Toronto,

New York, Chicago and De‐ troit, and runs a bus service from Toronto to Stratford.

"It takes a thousand things. There's no silver bullet that makes this work."

Still, she says, the busi‐ ness is delicate, and when ticket sales start each No‐ vember, the festival starts over with "essentially noth‐ ing" in the bank, needing to make $80 million.

"Our smaller colleagues are in the same boat. You're taking a big step off a cliff and hoping, like the Roadrun‐ ner, you can keep the mo‐ mentum and not fall off the cliff. It is a challenging time.

"But I also feel a lot of op‐ timism in the marketplace, as well. I think people need what we do."