Grande Prairie city council will soon vote on approving $75,000 in funding to the 2023 Bear Creek Folk Festival.
Founder of the Bear Creek Folk Festival Sarah Card says they’re trying to make the festival as accessible to everyone as possible, and hope to make Grande Prairie a stop for tourists. However, Card says, expenses continue to rise to put the level of programming they desire.
“This year we have experienced a pretty significant increase in our costs for the festival, we have seen over $100,000 of our costs increases.”
Card adds transportation and inflation are some of the reasons for these increases, making it difficult to put the event together. The festival board initially requested $95,000 from city council, with city staff then forwarding the request to the Public and Protective Committee for $75,000 from the Large Scale Tourism Grant funding instead.
Card says they have also reached out to the Friendship Center and other partners for donations. The festival Funding sources include grant funding, revenue generation, donations, gift-in-kind support, and community sponsorship.
According to the report attached to the funding request, the festivals draws roughly 6,000 to 8,000 daily attendants. In 2022, event organizers say approximately 28.8 per cent of all attendees came to the festival from distances of more than 100 kilometres.
