By Pepper Parr
December 12, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
The City of Burlington is asking residents to share their input on a proposed event strategy for the city through an online survey. A link to that survey is at the end of this article.
Last March, hundreds of residents and event organizers shared their ideas and feedback with the Parks and Recreation department through stakeholder meetings and an online survey, about how to shape a future approach to festivals and events in Burlington, They fashioned an early sage strategy and now want feedback from the public to learn if the proposed strategy reflects their thoughts and ideas.
The meeting facilitator used a much different approach to recording the data gathered.
The proposed strategy touches on many aspects of the delivery of festivals and events in the community, including:
• The types of events held in the city
• The location of events in the city
• Funding for events.
The proposed event strategy will be presented to Burlington City Council in early 2017.
The city’s 25 year Strategic Plan supports festivals and events of all sizes and annually hosts three Top 100 Festivals and Events in Ontario. Burlington directly delivers a small number of events with the majority of events being delivered by the community for the community. Festival and event organizers are supported by the city as they enrich our community, create a sense of belonging and support our strategic goals of A City that Grows, A City that Moves, A Healthy and Greener City and An Engaging City.
A number of factors including the city’s natural beauty make Burlington a desirable location to host events. All stakeholders in the city have an expectation that the city’s assets and resources are used responsibly and reflect the best interests for the greater good. A number of trends have highlighted the importance of having an event strategy including:
Interest in a variety of events
Increased attendance at events
Concerns with profit events on public land
Safety and legislative requirements for event organizers
Community consultation for new events
Concerns with events in Burlington requiring admission fees
There is a historical approach applied to the acceptance of events hosted within Spencer Smith Park; is it time or that to change. Spencer Smith Park and some downtown roads have reached capacity and there is now a desire for a balanced approached to potentially expand events to other areas in our city.
The decision to turn the Beachway into a very different Regional Park that will be managed by the city will impact what Parks and Recreation decides how it is going to manage its budget. The planned park is massive in size.
Assuming all the planning being done to create a totally different Beachway the city will have a lot more space to locate events. It will be sometime before the public sees anything really new – but the plans to gut what currently exists in the Beachway and turn it into something significantly different are in place.
Coming up with a longer term plan and then a strategy to put that plan work is something Parks and Recreation has been working on for some time.
Despite a pretty decent turn out the participants in the workshop type setting didn’t come up with very much in the way of ideas.
The event held in March showed a lot of initiative and innovation on the part of the Parks and Recreation staff – but they got very little from the audience they had invited to take part.
The “legacy stake holders” were in the room to ensure that the way things were working for them didn’t get changed – when it was change that the city wanted.
Ribfest has been in Spencer Smith Park for more than 20 years – there are people at city hall think that might be due for a change. Ribfest is a Rotary event and one doesn’t advance a career at city hall going against the Rotary flow – Burlington has four different Rotary organizations in this city.
Sound of Music has been around for a long time – it is one of the best festivals in the province and consistently takes awards – which are usually handed out by the organizations that run awards across the province – a little on the self-serving side.
However, it is a stunning event and draws very well. Parks and recreation wants to know if it can be better.
They also want to see what they can do to organize events that are not in Spencer Smith Park. So far they haven’t come up with much in the way of new ideas and that meeting in March didn’t add anything useful.
Denise Beard, one of the managers within Parks and Recreation is one of the best thinkers in the department. She organized the event.
Parks and Recreation does have a challenge – the survey is one of the ways they are looking for reaction from the public on some ideas they are developing.
What doesn’t appear to have occurred to Parks and Recreation is looking for ways to partner with community groups that are developing a market for events.
The Lowville Festival – heading into its third year has shown that there is a market for what they have developed – now they need some facilities support and some early stage financial support – just the way the Sound of Music did when it started as a city run event.
