An annual Vancouver charity holiday tradition is searching for a new home this year.
For 27 years, the B.C. Professional Firefighters Burn Fund has held its annual “Bright Nights” charity event in Stanley Park.
The event features a massive display of holiday lights, music and the centrepiece attraction, the Stanley Park miniature train, as it collects donations for burn survivors and sick and injured firefighters.
The train has been out of commission since last December, when exhaust from one of its locomotives caused a driver to become ill and require medical attention.
That was only the latest incident in a string of problems with the aging equipment.
Rather than opt for a modified version of Bright Nights, the Vancouver Park Board has instead turned to a juggernaut pop culture franchise for a winter event.
Admission to Harry Potter™: A Forbidden Forest Experience will start at $49, three times the cost of a Bright Nights pass.
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And while there will be plenty of Hufflepuffs and Hippogriffs on site, the firefighters will be absent this year.
“We were of course disappointed when we heard the announcement that the train wasn’t going to be up and operational,” burn fund executive director Jeff Sauvé said.
The group is now pivoting as it looks for an alternative venue.
Sauvé said it hopes to be able to reveal a new plan within weeks.
“I’m not sure if it will cover what we traditionally have through Bright Nights at Stanley Park, that’s a longstanding tradition,” he said.
“But what I do know is throughout this journey, the public has been unbelievable. Individual donors, communities, private enterprise have reached out and said, hey, how can we help?”
The annual fundraiser makes up a critical portion of the burn fund’s budget.
At its peak, he said the Bright Nights at Stanley Park fundraiser, where thousands of lights are strung up around the mini train station and people riding the train make a donation to the park, raised up to half a million dollars. They also received a percentage from the train sales.
About 800 firefighters spend close to a month mounting the lights.
“This needs to be treated as a reprieve while the park board can figure out what the future of the train is,” Sauvé said.
“In the meantime, we are going to come up with a great plan B to make sure that individuals do have somewhere to go to get a candy cane from the firefighters and celebrate the season alongside of us.”
The mini train’s indefinite derailment came after the Vancouver Park Board spent years underinvesting in the popular and profitable attraction.
Its future now looks uncertain.
The park board told Global News it is exploring new “operating and business models” for the railway site, adding it is in talks with the burn fund to help the charity reach its fundraising goals.
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