B.C. announces $30 million fund to help struggling events

The B.C. government is offering a cash injection to events across the province still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Lana Popham was at the Pacific Coliseum Thursday to announce that $30 million in one-time grants will be offered to eligible events happening between April 1, 2023 and Dec. 31, 2024.

“It has to have been an event that happened in the past and that there’s one planned for this year,” Popham said, adding the grant is not available to international events.

In a news release, the province said grants can be as much as 20 per cent of an event’s total budget, to a maximum of $250,000, though grants could be larger depending on the number of applications received. Applications are open until March 3.

One group already planning to apply is the team behind the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. In January, organizers announced that the 2023 event would be cancelled, and possibly never return, blaming "massively increased costs."

Popham said when she heard that news, she found the festival president’s number on Facebook and called him.

“I said, ‘Walk me through the whole problem,' and he was very generous with his time and it allowed us to kind of move forward,“ Popham said.

The man on the other end of that call was Mark Zuberbuhler, who was also in attendance for Thursday’s event.

“There is hope now,” Zuberbuhler said. “This announcement today puts us on a positive path and we will work very, very hard to make that happen.”

He said while it’s not confirmed that a grant would help bring the Folk Festival back this year, his team will try very hard to make it happen. Though it may be in a different venue than the iconic setting of Jericho Beach.

“We don't have a place, we don’t have one act booked, we have nothing,” he said. “But, we have a bit of time and we have commitment.”

Thursday’s announcement is almost identical to a provincial announcement in 2021 offering $30 million in one-time grants to events to keep them afloat during the pandemic. Popham said those grants helped almost 700 festivals across the province in more than 130 communities.

Popham admitted the government can’t sustain the events industry over the long term, and said the grants were to give businesses time to “take a breather” and assess how they can support themselves moving forward.