Grande Prairie City Council opted to grant the Bear Creek Folk Festival an $80,000 funding boost to support operations and infrastructure for this year’s event.
The funding comes from $50K of the City’s Sponsorship Fund and $30,000 from council’s strategic initiative funding. Recently, council approved changes that cap the amount one event can obtain from the sponsorship fund. Mayor Jackie Clayton says going above the sponsorship fund through strategic initiative dollars was appropriate, as the event drives tourism from around the world to Grande Prairie.
“Council believes that the Bear Creek Folk Fest is really a premier event and a highlight of the summer, it drives tourism in our region, and with that council decided to go above and beyond the policy to support it with strategic initiative dollars, not to break the policy but to support it in addition to the policy,” she says.
Event Producer Sarah Card says the folk festival is grateful for council’s funding as the event has continued to accumulate costs, growing as high as 30 per cent when compared to years past, as demand grows every year.
“We asked for it because we really needed it, and we’re very grateful to the city for finding a way to make that happen,” she says. “As certain funds tend to dry up as you go over time, it is so important to have stable funds coming from somewhere so this helps us continue to work on keeping our event on a solid footing.”
According to Card, this year’s event boasts more than 400 volunteers and expects a sold-out crowd of up to 7,000 visitors on the grounds this summer.
“We are absolutely shattering the numbers from last year, our ticket sales are where they were in late May last year and that was with some pretty major names on the ticket, so we are anticipating a sellout as early as possibly this month,” she says. “These are numbers we usually see in mid-July and I am just very excited to see that the community is that engaged and excited to be a part of it.”
The 2024 artist lineup has been released and features acts of all genres such as Alan Doyle, Amanda Panda, Buffalo Nichols, and more. Tickets are available on the Bear Creek Folk Festival’s website.
