What Are We Doing Wrong?

Thursday, July 28, 2005 04:01 AM

Can we blame the weather for the local event failures such as the recently staged folk fest which surely should have been a winner?

Last weekend yet another event, planned and worked over by volunteers, appears to have taken its last breath. It is not alone and we might want to do some soul searching on the issue.

The Air Show taken from Vanderhoof when it was struggling, bit the dust. Strange how the airshow is actually showing some growth in othere centres, such as Ft. St. John.

The Salmon Valley Music festival slipped into the history books and while bad management may have been in some measure the reason for its demise, they're still up and running (and running well I might add) in Merrit.

At one point, we had a very good thing going in a raft race, complete with canoe races and boat races. There was talk at the time of taking a spot in the world Jet boat event. The race (along with the rafts) got a couple of years in and then went bye- bye.

Snow golf, a great idea that is not weather dependent, used to be a hit to the point it received world wide attention. In the years of its hay day, a couple of Hollywood types showed up for the show. So what has been our problem?

When 1000 people attended the folk fest the other weekend, you knew the event was dead.

There were some fine efforts by many volunteers who, even along with one of the sponsors, John Brink of Brink Forest products, made a special trip to Council to try and drum up support from the community.

Other centers such as Calgary, Edmonton and even Abbotsford have had their city's promoted beyond belief.

Somewhere we have dropped the ball, and instead of trying to put the focus on events in our city, we seem content to watch as others spend time and money making sure we are lured away to their respective areas .

That, is one man's opinion.

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Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2005 04:01 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: owl on July 28 2005 11:16 AM

I have been wondering the same thing for a long time ... we had all those things, plus places to go to listen to live music and dance in a variety of nightclubs and restaurants, most of which have also left.

Here is a free summer fest in London ... going for 32 years ... Murray McLauchlin, Gary Fjellgaard are the only two names I recognize since I am not a music trivia buff ...

http://www.homecounty.ca

I am sure if we presented a festival for free, it would be a failure eventually as well ...

I suspect this community is cacooning like no other community I know of.

We build enormous number of soccer fields which see 3 months of the year use if that; public arenas which are so money strapped that they must resort to catering to questionable events rather than shows with name stars which too few around here seem to be interested in; the recent visit by a Circus which was held in the civic centre was pathetic and sad to see; we are not interested in downtown because people don't walk; and we can basically roll up the river walk for the same reason.

The closing of George street on an August weekend; Canada day in the park; and the farmer's market still seem to draw a crowd. At least those are the ones I am familar with which cater to a general audience and are not sports related.

How the Cougars are doing for attendance, I do not know, but it would not surprise me if that attendance was going in the same direction as many of the events you cited.

Perhaps one of our UNBC profs would care to suggest a study to explore this issue as a masters thesis for a student or two.

Posted by: tami on July 28 2005 8:34 PM

I may have a few ideas as to what we're doing wrong regarding the folkfest. To begin, I spoke with a few of the performers at the festival, and they were all amazed to be performing at a festival where there was no beer garden. Apparently this is unheard of. I know, I know, there will be those who say that we don't need alcohol to enjoy this event, but if a beer garden draws more ticket purchasing public, and beer sales can infuse much needed cash, then I say why not? Not to promote any stereotypes, but I'm thinking that a crowd of folk festival attendees probably wouldn't create that much of a security hazard after a few cold beverages.

Another comment I heard on the weekend, was that people from out of town were calling Ticketmaster for tickets to folk fest, and were repeatedly routed through to Avril Lavigne tickets. After several frustrating attempts to buy tickets, they gave up. One has to wonder how many others from out of town just gave up out of frustration...

I also spoke to a woman who travelled in on Saturday from Quesnel, and she said that when she told people there that she was coming to folk fest in Prince George, many of them hadn't heard about folk fest at all. Maybe more advertising is needed?

Having made these comments, just let me say that I was at the park for a good portion of the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Please, Prince George, don't let another good thing go down the drain, let's step up and support this wonderful celebration of world music. If there is a next year, I'm definately in, who's with me?

Posted by: rock on July 29 2005 7:51 AM

FOLKFEST,just the word to me means old,hicksville a bunch of old people sittin around which means no fun.Change the name and market it better.
ROCK

Posted by: Chadermando on July 30 2005 12:03 AM

I agree with Tami in regards to the beer gardens. The appologists in this town seam to like to purify everything to the point where nobody is interested in going anymore. This town has good people, but the party planners are a bunch of stiffs. The connection is just not there between the people and the planners.

Another issue I think is location that is suitible for the event. Folk Festival people are travelers and campers and they like to make a weekend out of it. Fort George Park is a day park for short-term day events.

Prince George needs a tourism focal point to the community. I have often suggested that Island park should be this place with a cleaned up channel, and riverside camping within the city limits on an existing bus route that has the next door potential for a natural outdoor amphitheater overlooking the river, and from a location that is connected to hundreds of kilometers of some of BC's best potential mountain biking trails along the river at Wilson Park as well as Moores Meadow Park and potentially along the Crest of Cranbrook Hill to UNBC.

Time Will Tell

Posted by: Chadermando on July 30 2005 12:08 AM

Ooops that should have read 'Fish Trap Island Park'....

Posted by: spanky on July 30 2005 6:46 PM

Hey, don't think it is only P.G. Look at vancouver, they lost the grizzlies, a pga tour stop, ml lacrosse, molson indy, AAA basbeall, so give me a break about poor ol pg. it called you have to pay to play. if these events aren't promoted, run, planned, etc proprly, they go broke like any business. imo there are too many dreamers out there. A folk festival? Do a poll how many people in ol PG really dig "FOLK MUSIC" besides the organizers and a hundred or so volunteers?

later dreamers