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Yearend Coverage: Borealis Music Festival doesn’t hit right note in first year

Dec 28, 2016 | 5:00 AM

The Borealis Music Festival began as an idea to turn Prince Albert into a tourist destination through music and entertainment. With thirty-two bands in three days, bouncy castles for the kids, beer gardens for the big kids, it promised something for everyone.

Unfortunately the festival didn’t go over very well. Just over $316,000 was spent but only roughly $236,000 was recouped, leaving an $80,000 deficit. The projected 15,000 attendees in reality was only 1,200 people in Kinsmen Park over the August long weekend.

If one ever believed in omens, event organizer with P.A. Tourism Abraham Lancaster said before the event began, “You name it, I’m sure we’ve had to deal with it. There are bands that have broken up and all kinds of obstacles.” But regardless of the challenges, Lancaster believed in the Borealis.

Even after the event, and it was proved the concert lost money and was generally not as successful as hoped, P.A. Tourism fully expected to host the festival again the following summer.

Amber Pratt, CEO of P.A. Tourism, said overall, the festival was a hit.

“We’re so happy with how everything turned out. We had such great support from our sponsors, volunteers and the community in general,” she said. “We’ve had nothing but positive feedback from everybody, especially people in the music industry and people who performed.”

Unfortunately, regardless of the feel-good vibes, the Borealis Music Festival could be considered an economic fail, putting P.A. tourism into so much debt it needed a $20,000 bailout from the city.

During an early April 2016 city council meeting, councillors contemplated a request, originally denied, which would grant Tourism an $80,000 loan to pay-off the Borealis Music Festival debt. This loan would be on top of the $20,000 granted so P.A. Tourism could continue regular operations in 2015.

As well, many local vendors and businesses had not been paid after the event.

It was Mayor Greg Dionne’s opinion the people who stepped forward should not be punished because the Borealis was not a financial success. He argued “They should be paid and if the mechanism is not in place to pay them, we have to put that loan through.”

Couns. Lee Atkinson and Charlene Miller were the only two to oppose the city’s funding for the festival back when it was approved in early 2015. Neither supported providing a $15,000 grant by the city and a donation in kind, specifically the facility and equipment necessary, either.

Atkinson feared by granting the loan, council would set a bad precedent.

“Does this mean [if] we give a grant… from here on in, we’re the underwriters of every event?” he asked. “If we give a $1,000 here, $5,000 there and then if the event does not go well, we’ll pick up the loose ends?”

Dionne said in his 12 years on council, this was the only event which had failed financially. He admitted it should not have been approved in the first place because it did not meet the city’s specified grant criteria.

Prince Albert residents ultimately paid for the Borealis Music Festival’s debt after the April 2016 budget negotiations.

Dionne did his best to assure folks the money be recouped and said the organizers will pay the city back $25 to $30,000 at a time.

At the time, Dionne also said a committee had been formed to look at the possibility of another Borealis Music Festival, only this time with the appropriate checks and balances in place to prevent it from going awry.