Some of the city’s most popular festivals are joining forces – and funds – in an effort to better promote Edmonton.
Nine festivals pooled their advertising dollars and, with the help of Tourism Alberta and Edmonton Tourism, were able to come up with a $30,000 marketing campaign that reached outside of the City of Edmonton, all at a cost of $850 per festival. They were able to purchase billboard space outside the city, as well as a number of brochures and advertising space in local media.
“We believe as a festival group that this is for the betterment of Edmonton,” said general manager of Events Edmonton, Paul Lucas, who represents Taste of Edmonton. “We don’t have the big advertising budgets. We wish we could, but unfortunately we don’t.”
“A lot of our festivals are struggling financially,” Lucas said.
The festivals have come together to find cost cutting measures. For example, some are sharing office space, tents and different equipment.
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“Those little things – it’s not just the money – it’s also the work time and energy to go get it,” Heritage Festival Executive Director Jim Gibbon said. “It’s amazing the sheer volume of things that are coming together by us helping each other out.”
They also worked together to ask the city to look into ballooning civic costs for hosting the events, saying the cost for things like policing, road closures, and park, bylaw and permit fees have skyrocketed. Some city fees jumped by as much as 80 per cent.
Civic fees for the Servus Heritage Festival jumped from $69,000 in 2013 to $155,000 last year. Organizers expect those fees to grow to $250,000 this year.
Edmonton City Council said it is looking into creating a grant program specifically for civic fees in hopes of covering at least 50 per cent of the cost.
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“We all recognize we need to work together and not compete,” said Lucas, who added dozens of Edmonton festivals get together on a monthly basis to talk about their successes, where they can improve and to share ideas.
Now winter festivals are doing the same, looking at ways to work together on a similar marketing campaign to be released later this year.
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