Coldsnap! New Version of the Folkfest

Monday, October 29, 2007 08:35 PM

Prince George, B.C. - Imagine a Prince George Folkfest that is NOT taking place in July!

The Artistic Director of the Folkfest, Jo Beattie, says they want to try holding a winter folkfestival. This would eliminate the competition with other festivals that take place in the summer, there are more students in the area during the winter, which means their market is larger and a winter festival would mean there would be one more thing to promote Prince George as a winter City.

Call it "Coldsnap" and it would take place over eight nights in different venues in the city.

Here's the hitch, "Coldsnap" needs cold hard cash, $10 thousand in fact.

The financial reality is that the summer format has cost $160 thousand dollars, and as a grassroots, volunteer organization and continue promoting events they will need to shore up their funding. Beattie says she is hopeful the ten grand would become an annual funding allotment.

The organizers say the winter festival would be more economical to present and would cost about 1/3 of the summer format.

The organizers are hoping to hold their first "Coldsnap" in January, February of 2008 but need the dollars from the City to ensure artists can get a downpayment for their appearance.

Council has put the request over to the next meeting, when it will be clear where the funds will be found and what kind of public-private partnerships may be developed to proceed with support for Coldsnap.

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Posted on Monday, October 29, 2007 08:35 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: bohemian on October 29 2007 9:49 PM

So there's less competition in the winter? Cougars, Theatre North West, PGSO, Spruce Kings, Blues Underground, Judy Russell, Theatre Workshop, Artspace Events, Excalibur Performing Arts, CN Centre performing arts events, Cinema CNC, Timberwolves Basketball, and on and on.

Lots of festivals are very successful during the summer. I'll bet the problem has nothing to do with the time of year.

Posted by: owl on October 29 2007 11:57 PM

"The organizers say the winter festival would be more economical to present and would cost about 1/3 of the summer format."

Would that be net or gross cost?

I assume that the net cost might be less if there is more income based on more people attending.

However, I suspect that the gross cost will increase since the venues will be indoors, thus facilties would likely cost more than a park rental and the cost of support services such as sound systems would be greater since they would have to be moved if the venues are in as many as 8 different locations.

Posted by: bohemian on October 30 2007 12:06 AM

The biggest cost for the current Folkfest is talent. So how exactly is the talent cheaper in the winter?

Posted by: opinionated on October 30 2007 1:37 AM

Has Jo Beatie lost her mind? How much more in the whole does she want to go and expect he city to keep bailing her out?

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on October 30 2007 8:20 AM

This is just a party for the locals and party students. Nothing matter with that.

What is wrong is peddling it as money spent to draw in tourists. PG doesn't see that many tourists in the winter and I seriously wonder who would hop on a airplane to come to PG for an evening?
I don't like it when council lets their morals down to find excuses to spend a budget on items that don't apply. Or if the council is going to be immoral, at least be consistent and quit crawling back up on that high horse when it is convenient.

Posted by: realitycheck on October 30 2007 8:39 AM

The City gave them just under $6k last year...this year they want $10k....I thought it was going to be cheaper in the winter???!!!!

Posted by: northman on October 30 2007 9:53 AM

The artist roster and logistics they had in the summer festival was much larger then the one they are proposing for the winter venue. Ex. Corb Lund alone costs $30,000 for a concert and thats just for him to show up then factor in the artist and perfomance ryders and it adds to even more. If your starting a new festival you have to run on a shoe string budget and utilize local amature talent for less $$. If you get good results you promo the hell out of the next years festival and it will continue to grow from there.

Posted by: owl on October 30 2007 12:42 PM

"Coldsnap"????

How about something more enticing in the middle of the winter like "Hot Toddy" .. "Hot Jammin' " .. or anything with "Hot" in it?

Posted by: tiemens1 on October 30 2007 1:06 PM

I like the change in name. Folkfest was never very descriptive of the event and caused a lot of people who don't like folk music to stay away. It's usually a great combination of talent and not much of it is folk. I also like the idea of a change in date because, from anecdotal stories, a lot of people I know wouldn't buy tickets in advance because if it was a nice weekend they would head to the lake. If it was a rainy weekend they didn't want to go to a music festival. I'm not sure about winter though. I was thinking more along the lines of mid-September to try to attract the students.

Posted by: northman on October 30 2007 6:31 PM

I think they need to be more creative in the names of these festivals also. Come up with a name that sells the region and artists in it.

Posted by: metalman on October 30 2007 6:58 PM

$30K for Corb Lund? Is that for sure?
Sounds kinda rich for a backwater festival.
Neat idea, though I think it should sink or swim on its' own, with out grant monies.
metalman.

Posted by: owl on October 31 2007 11:14 PM

I thought I would let my fingers walk through the internet for a while to look at what others are doing about winter music festivals.

Interesting to see that even with some big name stars, the entry fees for individual events were below $10/person/event.

In the Dead of Winter � Halifax; note the deadline for artist applications is November 1, 2007
http://www.inthedeadofwinter.com
http://www.beforethemusicdies.com/blog/2007/01/08/in-the-dead-of-winter-music-festival-2

Boston Celtic Music Fest
http://www.bcmfest.com

Philadelphia � NoLibs Winter Music Festival
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/08/nolibs-winter-music-festival

West Virginia - Gardner Winter Music Festival � real foksey
http://www.gwmf.org

Lake Placid snoe.down � this is an interesting one. It makes enough money to donate money to good causes locally.
http://www.snoedown.com

Perhaps the organizers need to take a bit of a different look at this. Get some major private sponsors who will get advertising from the sponsorship and commit any excess to community organizations as donations.