Plans are afoot to keep Kempenfest on its feet, financially speaking.
Council passed a motion Feb. 7, with no discussion, to have city staff work with Kempenfest and Tourism Barrie officials to address potential event changes at the annual waterfront festival and look at conducting a study on financial performance, tourism, general perception of visitors and report back on these matters, including funding options.
Kempenfest chairman Bob Stones said working with these partners will help fix what ails the festival.
“What remains to be done is to use that dialogue to discuss ways to access some additional funding to enable us to do so in both the short and long term,” he said. “I am hopeful that our discussions with city staff and Tourism Barrie will lead to that end.”
Last month, Stones asked councillors, sitting as infrastructure and community investment committee, to consider granting Kempenfest $50,000 from the municipal accommodations tax (MAT) and hiring a researcher to do a comprehensive analysis of Kempenfest 2024, gathering data on its true size and impact on the local economy and to local tourism.
The MAT is a four per cent levy on room rates at hotels, motels and AirBnBs. Tourism Barrie is the collection agent, on behalf of the City of Barrie, as the city’s tourism entity and receives 50 per cent of the MAT. The city gets the reminder.
Stones emphasized that Kempenfest is asking for funding from MAT.
“It is not from the city (property) tax base,” he said. “MAT is intended to be used by eligible tourism entities to support sustainable funding of local tourism initiatives.
“We believe that Kempenfest has been and continues to be Barrie's premier summer tourism event,” Stones added. “Allocating some funding from the MAT to Kempenfest 2024 will assist it in the development of a long-term plan to ensure the future of events and its positive economic and cultural impact in Barrie.”
Stones said a meeting is scheduled with Tourism Barrie on Feb. 21, in part to discuss what the role and scope of a researcher might be in any study.
“We do have audience numbers and economic impact numbers based on data we collected during Kempenfest 2023,” he said. “Those numbers were arrived at by applying Tourism Ontario formulas to our data and coming up with the results.
“One purpose of hiring a researcher could be to verify our data collection to show that our numbers are accurate insofar as we have been able to generate them with our limited resources.”
While the arts and crafts festival attracts roughly 150,000 people to Barrie’s waterfront on the Civic Holiday weekend, it has faced some fiscal challenges.
Despite a $600,000 operating budget this year, Kempenfest faced a $50,000 shortfall.
Stones has said Kempenfest can balance its budget by eliminating the shuttle bus service, which is $14,000, as well as the second or family stage, which features local talent and is free to the public, but costs at least $10,000, by reducing the number of hospitality tents and seating in those tents, which are placed throughout Kempenfest to provide shelter to the public from weather, looking at reducing the number of washrooms, and finding ways to reduce the event’s waste disposal costs.
Another purpose of the Feb. 21 meeting will be to discuss the request for additional funding, Stones said, as much as $50,000 from the MAT. He said shuttle buses and the second or family stage have both been removed from Kempenfest’s 2024 financial forecast in order to balance the budget.
That could change if Kempenfest gets the MAT money.
Dawn McAlpine, the city’s general manager of community and corporate services, has said the city does provide help to Kempenfest, including direct staff support, site services co-ordination and administrative support, as well as from a number of city departments, including transit.
The estimate of the value of that specific support, that is beyond what is provided to other events in Barrie, is approximately $21,000 to $22,000, in recognition of the importance of Kempenfest to the community and to many local charities.
Stones has said the goal for Kempenfest is to make the event better, not bigger, given there is limited space on Barrie’s waterfront.
