Provincial funding for the Mariposa Folk Festival dropped more than $100,000 this year, and organizers are frustrated with the reduced government support — and the timing of the news.
From 2017 to 2019, and 2022, the festival received between $175,000 and $210,000 in funding from the province’s Experience Ontario grant (formerly known as Reconnect Ontario and Celebrate Ontario), which is administered by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport to support events and festivals with a tourism economic impact.
This year, the funding was limited to only $72,500 — about $112,500 less than last year — which was only recently announced this past Friday, weeks after the festival had taken place.
“As a long-term recipient of funding, we were quite surprised not to be notified of whether we got our funding until after our event,” said Mariposa Folk Foundation president Pam Carter.
“Our grant was significantly reduced from previous years, and it was too late in the budgetary process to make amendments to our budget, so now we're kind of backpedaling trying to sort out our financial situation," lamented Carter.
“If the perspective of the government is changed, at least give us a heads up that funding won't be forthcoming, going forward, so that we can adjust our budgets accordingly.”
Carter said the festival, which has sold out the past two years, is still financially solvent regardless of the reduced funding, but the foundation is, nonetheless, frustrated by the news.
“It impacts our consistency and impacts our programming moving forward. We're not in risk; we're not in risk of not paying bills,” she said. “It's more, I guess, a message around … the lack of value of arts and culture. In a time when people are facing great hardship … that was one of the things that they could come out to and get some enjoyment.”
Although Carter noted the funding is subject to an application process every year, she said the key impact is that the abrupt, dramatic drop in funding could impact the event’s consistency – which is difficult to manage, budgetarily, in light of the comparatively consistent funding it has received for years.
That said, the impact of the reduced funding could, potentially, lead to higher ticket prices, or changes in programming, but Carter said the foundation will work to mitigate anything that could affect the experience for attendees.
“We'll find ways to make the impacts so that they won't be obvious,” she said. “The festival will be fine.”
Foundation manager Chris Hazel said he, too, is discouraged by the reduced funding, especially in light of the struggles that festivals like Mariposa have faced around the province throughout COVID-19.
“This program, for many years, has been about supporting tourism and about supporting economic development, and it really seems like the wrong time to be axeing those programs across the province, (when) the live music industry is just in the early stages of recovering from (COVID-19),” he said. “It was one of the hardest hit industries in Ontario, and around the world.”
Although he said the festival is a “success story” that has seen attendance climb over 80 per cent in the past eight years, the same isn’t true for all recipients of the Experience Ontario grant.
“To not find out until after the festival that you've taken a $100,000 hit, it's a real surprise,” he said. “While it's hard on Mariposa, it's even harder on other festivals and events around the province that have really struggled to emerge out of (the) pandemic.”
Investing in arts and culture events, like the folk festival, provides “important economic spillover” to a wide variety of industries and local businesses, Hazel said, on top of providing an event for the public to attend.
“The Ontario government has traditionally really recognized that when you invest in arts and culture, there's a multiplier effect that really has a positive impact on the economy,” he said.
“At a time like this, when everyone's just struggling to get back on their feet, to have that retrenchment and withdrawal of millions of dollars across the province is going to have a huge impact, not just in Orillia, but across the whole province.”
