Marquee Tourism Event Cash Starts to Flow Next Deadline May 8, 2009!

CCA Bul­letin 15/09

May 1, 2009

 

 

Just the Facts

In the last fed­eral bud­get, the Min­is­ter of Finance, the Hon. James Fla­herty announced that $ 100 mil­lion in new money would flow over two years to mar­quee fes­ti­vals and events to boost their capac­ity to attract tourists.

The Pro­gram, admin­is­tered by the Depart­ment of Indus­try, is a wel­come replace­ment for the fund­ing that was can­celled by the Paul Mar­tin gov­ern­ment in the wake of the adver­tis­ing scan­dal stem­ming from the national unity fund within the Prime Minister’s Office. The cur­rent iter­a­tion of the pro­gram has two com­po­nents tar­get­ing Tier I and Tier II fes­ti­vals in its criteria.

Eli­gi­ble Tier 1 events have an “inter­na­tional pres­ence”, min­i­mum audi­ence of 250,000, at least 10% of which are tourists, and a min­i­mum bud­get of $ 2 mil­lion.  The events must have been in oper­a­tion for three years, have three con­sec­u­tive days of pro­gram­ming and an inter­na­tional mar­ket­ing strat­egy that includes overnight packages.

Eli­gi­ble Tier 2 events have a min­i­mum audi­ence of 50,000, of which 10% are tourists, and a min­i­mum bud­get of $ 500 000. The event must have been in oper­a­tion for at least three years, fea­ture three con­sec­u­tive days of pro­gram­ming and have a domes­tic and inter­na­tional mar­ket­ing strat­egy that includes overnight packages.

The first events to ben­e­fit from this pro­gram are:

Cal­gary Stam­pede

The Cal­gary Exhi­bi­tion and Stam­pede Limited

$1,923,750

Char­lot­te­town Festival

Fathers of Con­fed­er­a­tion Build­ing Trust

$958,000

Edmon­ton Inter­na­tional Fringe The­atre Festival

Fringe The­atre Adven­tures Society

$414,300

Fes­ti­val inter­na­tional de Jazz de Montréal

Le Fes­ti­val inter­na­tional de jazz de Mon­tréal inc.

$3 mil­lion

Québec City’s Sum­mer Festival

Fes­ti­val d’été inter­na­tional de Québec inc.

$2,716,886

Shaw Fes­ti­val

Shaw Fes­ti­val The­atre Foun­da­tion, Canada

$2,131,860

Strat­ford Shake­speare Festival

Strat­ford Shake­spearean Fes­ti­val of Canada

$3 mil­lion

Toronto Inter­na­tional Film Festival

Toronto Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val Inc

$3 mil­lion

Fur­ther pro­gram infor­ma­tion and appli­ca­tion forms can be found here.

The next dead­line for pro­pos­als is May 8, 2009.

The pro­gram is linked to tourism objec­tives and is man­aged by the Depart­ment of Indus­try rather than the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage. The Min­is­ter of State for Small Busi­ness and Tourism, the Hon­ourable Diane Ablon­czy is over­see­ing the process with her usual rigour.

The first recip­i­ents wel­come the infu­sion of new funds. Some of the recip­i­ents have cur­tailed some pro­gram­ming due to the reces­sion; how­ever, with these new funds, it is pos­si­ble for some to restore pro­gram ele­ments for the cur­rent sea­son – the Strat­ford Fes­ti­val hav­ing already announced as much.

The CCA con­grat­u­lates the recip­i­ents and the Min­is­ter of State for Small Busi­ness and Tourism on the expe­di­tious deliv­ery of this impor­tant new program.