Morinville's St. Jean Baptiste Day Festival is no more, says the group behind it – but that's because it's moved up by a week and changed its name.
Morinville Festival Society president Korien Sampson announced these and other changes to the town's biggest summer festival at a committee of the whole meeting last week.
Sampson said the society made the change because it could not get a midway on St. Jean Baptiste Day weekend, which this year was June 25 and 26. They tried inflatable bouncy-castles as a substitute this year, but those cost almost $38,000 and pushed the society $32,000 into debt.
"It's totally unsustainable," she said.
Sampson said the only way Morinville could guarantee having a midway at its festival was to hold it a week earlier, which meant leaving St. Jean Baptiste Day behind.
"The priority for us is to put on a festival the community wants," she said, and the community clearly wants the midway.
The summer festival will now happen on the third week of June (June 17 and 18 for 2017) and be known as Festival Days, Sampson said.
Although it will no longer qualify for a French heritage grant, the society hopes to keep French-orientated events in the festival through fundraising. It was also working with other community groups such as the Jessica Martel Foundation – which holds its annual run during the festival – to see if they could move their events.
Sampson said the new festival would likely keep the $5 gate fee introduced at this year's event, as the society had to charge something if it wanted the event to become self-funding. The society had no plans to raise the fee.
Next year's festival will once again feature a logger sports competition, but it would not be televised as it would be too expensive, Sampson said. The society had hoped to bring TSN's Lumberjacks TV show to the festival as part of Canada's 150th anniversary.
Although the logger sports event was the second-most expensive item after the inflatables at this year's festival at $13,000, it also brought in the crowds and fit the festival's focus on history, Sampson said.
Budget criticisms
Sampson asked council for $35,000 in sponsorship dollars plus in-kind support to help run the 2017 festival. She also asked them to consider making the fields around the Ray McDonald Sports Centre, which at one point were to house the town's newest public school, into a permanent festival ground.
"This is a great green space for the community to come together throughout the year," she said, and protecting it would secure the future of its ball diamonds, splash-park and logger sports climbing poles.
Several councillors criticized the society's budget and encouraged the group to shrink the festival until it was more sustainable.
Coun. Stephen Dafoe noted that the society spent about $8,200 on fencing this summer yet earned just $10,500 on gate admissions.
"From a business model (perspective), that doesn't work unless you're going to get 10,000 people through the gate," he said.
He argued that the society could hold a pretty good festival for much less than its proposed $85,000 if it stuck to its most popular events, such as the firefighters' challenge, pancake breakfast and parade.
Sampson emphasized that the inflatables were the sole cause of this year's debt. The society planned to repay the debt over several years and to seek student interns to track down more grant funding.
She added in an interview that the current budget was more of a wish list, and that many items would drop off if the society didn't raise the $49,850 it hoped.
"If we don't have enough funds, we're not blowing up $5,000 (of fireworks) in the sky over 20 minutes."
Questions on the festival should go to Sampson at [email protected].
