Costs are up and donations are down, so after more than twenty years, the Airdrie Festival of Lights is in danger of going dark.
“This cold is killing us.”
“Mother nature is not being favourable to us right now,” Michelle Pirzek, coordinator of the Airdrie Festival of Lights, said.
The festival relies on sponsorships and donations. Typically 60,000 people visit the lights every December but so far, less than a thousand people have walked the trails.
The frigid temperatures have been dangerous for volunteers, so the train rides, concessions stands and donation booths have been closed.
“People aren’t visiting so they’re not able to make donations,” said Pirzek.
However, the biggest hit has been a compulsory upgrade needed to comply with new Canadian electrical code regulations.
The old lights didn’t work with the ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCI) the festival needed to install.
“All 800 displays were stripped of the old wire, sanded, painted and we put new light strand on and LED bulbs this year,” Pirzek said.
“You can’t budget for that. When we started the project, honestly, we didn’t know how many feet of strand we would need.”
“We never stripped 800 displays before. You can’t even estimate.”
The new bulbs make for a brighter festival, but they also mean the non-profit dipped into half of its annual operating budget for next year. It’s now $50,000 short and is in jeopardy of not running next year.
“I think it’s pretty special so it would be kind of heartbreaking to see it all go down. It’s such a nice thing to look forward to in the winter,” said Emily Malone, who was visiting the festival on Friday.
The lights will be on every evening until December 31.