St. Albert’s International Children’s Festival hopes to bring the crowds back next year after some attendance shrinkage in 2024.
Patrick Rabby, a board member of the Friends of the International Children’s Festival Society, updated city councillors on the 43rd annual event and plans for the 44th in 2025 at a committee meeting Nov. 12.
With 13,895 tickets sold, 8,362 of them students, attendance was down in 2024. Rabby said that’s not unusual for festivals this year as belts are tightened because of inflation.
He said the festival brought 17,325 people into the downtown core over its four days.
Rabby said 40 per cent of attendees said they were new to the festival and 56 per cent were from outside St. Albert, for which he credited the festival’s hard work promoting the event online; 93 per cent of respondents to a survey said they were satisfied with their experience.
“The numbers are through the roof on social media.”
In 2023, the 42nd festival sold 18,232 tickets and drew in total attendance of 22,810 to its paid and free events, 24 per cent reductions over 2023 in both cases, according to a report posted to the city’s website. There were 28 shows on the TD Outdoor stage, 3,987 people used the park-and-ride and 3.2 million “digital media impressions” were created online including on social media, all of it supported by 3,482 volunteer hours.
Coun. Shelley Biermanski relayed concerns she said she'd heard from attendees about the location of one of the venues downtown, the community theatre on Perron Street.
"What kind of draw did you have to that hall?" she asked. "It felt like people didn't know what things were going on there."
Rabby called on Andrea Gammon, St. Albert's cultural programming manager since the board doesn't get into the weeds of the festival's operations.
Gammon said the draw was "pretty good." She pointed out Father Jan was used as a third venue before it closed, and that the community hall has been used in the past and will be used in the future.
"It's just a case, as things shift, of getting people to really understand where everything is," she said.
Rabby added there was a "giant map" in materials provided at the festival.
"As a volunteer, it was actually pretty easy to direct people," he said.
Coun. Sheena Hughes told the Gazette Wednesday she isn't concerned by fluctuations in attendance.
"There's just so many variables that you can't control that convince the number of people that attend," particularly the weather, she said. "It's an outdoor event and so if it's cold out for a few days, the numbers go down. But … I find it's not because of the quality of the event."
"Other communities have cancelled theirs, but we are committed to making sure (ours) stays successful. And so far, it's on track."
Coun. Wes Brodhead said council should be made aware of such fluctuations when the city is involved, but that he has faith the chilling effect of the pandemic may still have a foothold.
"I suspect it will rebound next year," he said. "If the trend continues, we may have to do forensic examination (but) I'm pretty confident in the leadership over there and the group the city has helping them plan. They’ve done a good job for years (and) I think we need to give them as much time to recover as possible."
The tale of the tape
The 2024 festival’s initial budget was $533,000. It attracted $136,000 in grants and conducted $11,200 in fundraising; that and some pencil-sharpening by city staff enabled the board to reduce their ask of the city from $182,000 to $103,000.
The festival received $57,000 in private sponsorship and another $200,000 of in-kind support such as food and “festival infrastructure.”
Responding to a question from Coun. Ken MacKay, Rabby said festival lost TD Bank as a title sponsor this year (the bank is still involved at a more modest level). Fortis Alberta and Alberta Blue Cross remain major sponsors.
"I'm working on some other stuff," Rabby said.
A casino night planned for December will represent the next influx of cash for next year’s festivities.
The society plans to launch a new website to support its fundraising, and for next year’s event aims to attract $159,000 in grants, grow other fundraising by the board by another 15 per cent year-over-year and top $25,000 from a casino night or nights.
The board is trying to grow itself, too, from eight to 12 or 14 people. That’s been a challenge, Rabby said, adding the more members on the board, the more capacity it has to fundraise.
Mayor Cathy Heron asked how many board members there are now, and whether they need more simply to spread the workload around. Rabby said there are currently eight board members.
“Volunteer hours are a tough thing,” he said. “We can do a little bit more with more people; I think the fundraising expertise is one (important) thing. One of the focuses of the board is to try and augment provincial and federal funding because we don’t see it as indefinite. We’re not experts by any means, but we have to try to contribute as much as we can to take the load off of city hall.
“We have been growing it slowly, but I think that’s the focus. There are fundraising experts who do a good job but they’re really hard to find and get a hold of.”
Heron said she made a note of the board situation and said she’d see what she could drum up.
