City of Summerside wants to give Lobster Festival back to the community

The future of the Summerside Lobster Festival is up for debate.

That debate started at the council meeting Monday night, where councilors discussed the issue for close to an hour. Many wanted to see festival returned to the hands of the community. Three years ago the city took over running the festival after community groups were having trouble. 

"Judging from the response from councillors tonight I would say that there's definitely an appetite to make it an objective to return the festival back to community groups, to get back to basics, to simplify the festival." said COA Bob Ashley.

Mayor Bill Martin pointed to the Lobster Festival in Shediac N.B., where, he said, several community groups pitch in to run the festival. Ashley said that would be ideal in Summerside, but it will take some time to get there. 

"I don't think we can do that overnight, that will be something that will have to evolve over time," he said.

 "One by one, if we can pull more organizations in to hold fundraising events of their own and we can plug those into The Lobster Festival, then we're heading in that direction."

A simpler and cheaper festival

A major problem with running the festival has been the financial burden, with the budget often being in the red even before programming is decided Getting government funding has been one of the main issues, Ashley said.

"Funding from senior levels of government has been a challenge. They're handcuffed in a lot of ways as we are," he said.

Staffing and materials and supplies and marketing and promotion, those costs all add up.- Bopb Ashley

"There's only one taxpayer for all three levels of government, so that's a challenge."

There were many questions from around the council table, from the location of the festival to changing the date to line up better with the harness racing event, the Governor's Plate. Ashley said staff can look at all these issues, but what he and his team would like to see is a simpler, and ultimately cheaper, festival.

"Staging  events that require money and staffing and materials and supplies and marketing and promotion, those costs all add up." he said

"What I suggested tonight is that we try to simplify things or compress the event somewhat to see if we can reduce the budget by a certain percentage, do better than we did last year, but try to intensify the event over a shorter period of time."

The festival will remain in the hands of the city for now, but Ashley said he will take the suggestions of council back to his directors and  they will find ways to hopefully make the festival more sustainable.

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