Should Public Dollars Help Fund the Thrive Festival Again?

One of the items on the additional items that city council could fund in the 2014 budget is a grant for the Kamloops Thrive Festival. Last year, we gave a $75 000 grant to the first inaugural festival and, talking to a few of my colleagues, we believed this would be a one time grant.

Thrive was a great event in 2013 and I personally attended and paid for tickets to various seminars and concerts. However, the festival did not make money it's first year. There were a lot of first year learning moments.

This year, the festival is requesting a $37 500 grant from council. They feel strongly they can build on the strengths and learnings from year one and need a bit more funding space to grow the festival to financial sustainability.

On the other hand, there are concerns about going past the first year grant - should public funds be expended again when there are a lot of other important items on the supplemental budget (please see below) and what kind of precedent are we setting? Will we start get more requests of this nature? 

I really stuggle wtih this request because I know Thrive has amazing potential and is put on by stellar people. I also feel that we need to look at other funding requests that haven't yet received public funds. I believe Thrive has a great opportunity to market itself for corporate sponsorship. 

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[Linda Wall]

I never made it to the Thrive Festival, so I can't speak of experiences. However, I think they would be able to apply for lots of money elsewhere such as through Arts Councils and corporate sponsorship.

[[email protected]]

Arts events enrich the community in many ways. They make people happy, and build a healthy sense of community. Happier people are healthier. They therefor help deliver healthcare in that way. They open people's eyes to their own talents, and to possibilities, and to the arts worlds' dazzling array of options. So they help deliver education. They launch people into employment, and on to careers. So they help deliver a robust economy, and deliver social development. They show people the value of contributing to beauty, instead of considering crime - so they help assure justice, plus, these are wonderful people. So yeah, you should help. They need us. And whatever you give is returned through an enhanced economy.

[Caroline Dick]

I'm curious about their marketing plan. Kamloops Daily News is a 20,000K+ donor. With that huge chunk of advertising gone, I don't think money should be given without a new, solid marketing/advertising plan. Just to show that an increase in attendance is actually feasible.

[Mike]

I'm all for Kamloops helping events like this get going if they're in the public interest (like health and wellness is, I suppose), but if they can't keep going on their own, they can't keep getting tax dollars, otherwise, it just needs to be put in the budget as a public service. I totally agree that some of that $75,000 should have gone into securing sponsorships for future events.

If they get more money after spending $75,000 of city money on a losing venture that not enough people cared about to even make it break even, I'm applying for a grant for something, too. I don't even care what it is, because apparently it doesn't matter. There can apparently be little or no interest from anyone else in order to get approval, anyway.

City-funded scotch festival, maybe? If you give me $75K to put on the first one, I bet I can get Glenlivet and others to keep it going.

Or, another option is to stop funding these things altogether and make it easier to get around in this town. The transit system is a joke, university kids are still dodging traffic on Summit/McGill/Columbia, and I don't even go downtown anymore because parking is a joke (and like I said, transit is a terrible alternative).

Last idea: A grant to send some Kamloops bus drivers to "how to not take your own failures in life out on the public" class or something. Do they intentionally hire people that hate the world?

(Sorry if that turned into a rant about transit at the end there, but discussions I'm in about public dollars will often turn to transportation service deficiencies.)

[Jim Moorhead]

I also don't feel money should be forwarded after last year's showing. Before any grant money should be given, a detailed look at their Marketing Plan and expenditures should be reviewed to see how 'effective' the organization is. Maybe improvements must be done for this year, to see a better track record. Arts is important for Kamloops, but maybe an other request should be reviewed for funding. We have many great events now that we must support to keep afloat. I personally feel the Thrive Festival is not of the nature that Kamploopsians will support much further than last year, considering the many other events held. The population can only support so many events and this must be part of a consideration for Council, especially to ensure other events are not impacted since their is a 'limited amount' of funds allocated by residents.