Bloor West Village Festival Might Move

By Olena Wawryshyn

On September 21, the organizers of the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival announced that they are currently in the process of evaluating future possibilities for the growth and development of the festival and are considering moving the Toronto street festival to a new location.

Financial considerations, the human resources needed to stage the large three-day event, which this year attracted 400,000 people, and physical limitations posed by the Bloor Street location have led to the current re-evaluation, say the organizers.

“The success of the festival has forced us to think about what the future possibilities are,” says festival chairman Jurij Klufas. “One of the possibilities obviously is to continue what we have been doing on Bloor Street.  One more possibility is to carry out such a festival at Harbourfront. We have done this once and now that it is a positive thing, and we have to examine whether this would suit our further plans.”

Other locations currently being considered are the Canadian National Exhibition grounds, sites along Toronto’s waterfront and locations in Mississauga.

“Everyone looks at Bloor and says: ‘It is fantastic–there are massive amounts of people, it’s beautiful, we love it. Why would anyone want to leave Bloor?’  But if you look at what it costs on Bloor, you see a totally different element. And, if you consider that everything that you see has to be built in a few hours, and then taken from Bloor in a few hours and there are many rules and regulations, then you get another perspective,” says festival vice president Olya Grod.

According to Grod, every year, the event just breaks even because the costs of putting on the festival at the Bloor Street location are high, while the money coming in from sponsors and grants is limited.  In 2006 it cost close to $200,000 to stage the festival while total sponsorships from corporate supporters equaled $70,000. Grants made up $49,000.

Many of the costs and, in particular the largest, logistics (site set-up and management), are unavoidable at the Bloor Street site. For example, the festival organizers pay for security and police ($23,471.50); portable toilets ($9382.96), clean-up ($8,622); traffic barricades and closure signs ($12,836.50); and tables, chairs and tents ($13,000). Logistics costs are more than $100,000 in total. None of these are covered by the city.

Furthermore, opportunities for generating revenue are limited, say the organizers. The festival gets an inflow from the midway and charges for vendor tables, but there is no admission fee due to event’s status as a City of Toronto street festival.

Staging the festival also requires a great deal of human resources.  The festival is a non-profit corporation run by a committee that operates throughout the year.  Up to 200 volunteers assist on the day of the festival itself. It is estimated that festival volunteers put in an aggregate of  6,750 hours in 2005.

“But, after a year of work, after such a large participation by people, we would hope to pay the costs of our performers and at least to have some funds to set aside for a foundation or for charitable purposes,” says Grod.

All the performers, including those from out of town, cover their own costs as the festival is unable to pay them.

The festival organizers believe that moving to another location could possibly help to make it more financially viable. 

In addition, another location might allow for a more expanded program that would enable broader aspects of Ukrainian culture to be showcased to the general public. The Bloor West site poses physical limitations say the organizers and does not have the facilities that could allow for expanded exhibits, and shows that other locations do.

 “We want to showcase our contributions to the Canadian fabric, says festival executive director Raya Shadursky, “that we are Ukrainians of Canadian heritage but we have contributed a great deal in the cultural world-in the literary world, in cooking and theatre,” and Harbourfront gives us the exposure to do that,” she says.

Though a definite decision regarding the location of the popular Ukrainian festival’s location has not yet been made, the organizers say that they are going to investigate this question with the festival volunteers over the next few months.

“The main question,” says Klufas, is: “How are we going to improve the festival and its finances and its development– to move or is it better to keep it here [on Bloor] where we have a formula?”