Powell River’s annual summer festival season begins Monday, June 13, with Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy (PRISMA) and ends in September with the Sunshine Music Festival.
For the next two and a half months, city festivals will draw thousands of participants and visitors, and millions of dollars to the region.
Over 80 days, at least half are festival days for one event or another. Even those that appear to be festival-free are consumed with setup, take down, flurries of last-minute ticket sales, the rush to find billets, venue preparation, volunteer management and a host of other details required to put on these events.
The payback for Powell River is enormous, with some benefitting more than others, according to a tourism and festival expert.
“The incentives are not always aligned,” said Brock Smith, professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at University of Victoria and former head of its tourism management program. “The people who are making the most money are probably BC Ferries, the accommodation people and the food and beverage people. They’re the ones who are the frontline of those who benefit. The benefits are not equal throughout the community.”
For a community the size of Powell River, there are some reasons to be aware of what Smith calls “festival overload.”
“The way to judge that is volunteer burnout and how much sponsorship money is actually in the community,” said Smith, who has conducted economic impact studies for a number of festivals, including Victoria Symphony Splash and Vancouver Marathon. “I’m a proponent of trial and error or learning from experience. If you try something and it doesn’t resonate with the volunteers, or the sponsors, or the patrons, then that one didn’t work and move on. You’re not going to know that until you try.”
This year, Powell River will try Logger Sports again; the event was last staged 11 years ago. According to Laura Passek, the event’s secretary-treasurer, Powell River Logger Sports ended because founder Bob Marquis was burned out.
“Funds weren’t there, volunteers weren’t there and it just got to be too much for him,” said Passek. “He needed a break.”
Marquis is back as president this year and, according to Passek, she said she does not see a conflict between Logger Sports and other festivals because of its distinctiveness. That is a point of view supported by Smith.
“Differentiation is going to be key,” he said. “Based on the description of the things you’re doing in Powell River, many of those things are somewhat unique, so that’s good.”
Among festival circles, 2016 has been labelled a Kathaumixw year. According to organizers, International Choral Kathaumixw is one of the largest festivals of its kind in the world.
“Powell River is very supportive of the endeavours linked to local festivals, and indeed the festivals offered here provide a distinctive feature that makes Powell River an attractive area for residents and visitors alike,” said Kathaumixw chairman Tom Koleszar. “Festivals create culturally vibrant cities and are an economic driver.”
In 2014, Kathaumixw drew approximately 14,000 people to its competitions and concerts. Add 1,000 choir singers to the attendance figures, and hotels overload so much that billets are required.
In addition, PRISMA estimates thousands of people attend its events annually, 600 athletes compete in the BC Bike Race, Blackberry Festival attracts thousands in August and the recently returned Logger Sports expects anywhere between 2,000 and 6,000 people.
Even with this year’s cancellation of Powell River Sea Fair, the city’s longest running festival, with all of these events happening in such a concentrated period of time, the strain on the city’s resources becomes evident.
That stress is felt most on Willingdon Beach, festival ground zero.
According to Neil Pukesh, City of Powell River manager of recreation, there has to be a limit on what the venue can take.
“You look at all the events happening down at Willingdon Beach three weekends in a row,” said Pukesh. “It definitely needs some time to breathe. After a significant amount of use, it needs a bit of recovery time. Three events in a row is doable, anything more than that, we might have to take a real good look at it.”
The public is often unaware of hidden costs associated with festivals, according to Smith, such as policing and environmental impact.
“There’s also sharing the space with the visitors,” said Smith. “Yes, it’s great for the economy, but at some point, locals are going to say, ‘Do I really want to share with all these thousands of other people?’”
The most critical area that points to festival exhaustion, however, is volunteer burnout; a limited number of people are willing to give their time and energy to these events.
“With a community of 19,000, you’re going to get burnout,” said Smith. “I don’t know what stage that burnout kicks in.”
Scott Randolph, City of Powell River manager of economic development, said he is already seeing evidence of that.
“I’ve seen a number of events that have suffered, as a result of people just getting tired, because they don’t have the proper assistance or enough people supporting them, organizing and running the event,” said Randolph,
In the case of Kathaumixw, Carrie Lanigan, administrator at Powell River Academy of Music, which hosts the festival, said volunteers ensure the success of the festival, with the organizing committee working for months to manage the festival and all of its details.
“From providing and organizing transportation, to venue setup, to planning meals and home stays, volunteers always step up to the plate,” said Lanigan. “Many local people open their homes and welcome foreign visitors during Kathaumixw week. We are very grateful to the more than 500 people who give their time and expertise.”
Kathaumixw is so large and requires so many resources, annual festivals would likely suffer and might not be able to survive if the event was held every year instead of biennially.
“We are most appreciative of the support we receive every second year from our sponsors and volunteers,” said Koleszar. “Due to the size of the festival, if it was to occur annually, this would definitely create a strain on the community resources.”
Everyone involved in organizing and staging Powell River’s festivals say the city is known for dedicated volunteers who are the lifeblood of the community and make events possible that larger centres would find daunting.
“I hesitate to say finding volunteers is a problem, because I’m often struck by how generous people are with their giving of time and their skill level, and because we have a large retirement population,” said PRISMA executive director Michelle Hignell. “Because festivals can offer perks, we have something to trade that people value.”
PRISMA is not desperate for volunteers, said Hignell. However, it does involve a lot of work to find people.
“You’re constantly having to go back to the well and replenish your pool of volunteers, and you have to be mindful of acknowledging them properly, in keeping them interested,” she said.
Volunteer exhaustion, festival overlap and strain on venues can all contribute to a potential breaking point.
Festival organizers are reluctant to acknowledge Powell River may be approaching festival overload; city officials are not.
“How do you balance it all? It’s a very, very tricky process. I think with good planning, good coordination, it can happen, but there’s got to be a limit,” said Pukesh. “We want more events, the community wants more events in this town, but at what point do you have to say no?”
The solution, according to city officials, requires a lot of future planning and coordination.
Randolph said he has had a number of discussions about establishing a position or an office that coordinates special events.
“I’ve seen it done in other communities,” he said. “The office provided support and helped coordinate the calendar, so as to ensure there wasn’t double booking as is the case this year with the BC Bike Race overlapping Kathaumixw.”
Koleszar said he sees the city’s role continuing as it is now.
“Each festival organizer needs to maintain the viability of their own festival and have their own plan for development,” he said, “which should include the promotion of the City of Powell River and the regional district.”
