Sudbury's Up Here festival receives nearly $9,000 in online community donations
CBC News | Posted: August 15, 2023 9:00 AM | Last Updated: August 15, 2023
The City of Greater Sudbury has also offered additional monetary support towards the festival
Up Here festival organizers say the event is 'back at full force'.
That's thanks to what they describe as an outpouring of support in the form of online donations they received from hundreds of community members across Sudbury, Ont.
The turn of events comes just two weeks after the organizers went public about the $100K in provincial funding that fell through.
"We announced the things that we had to scale back and why we were doing it, and asked our community to come out and give us a hand," Christian Pelletier, co-founder of the Up Here festival in Sudbury, Ont. said.
"And boy, did they show up!"
Pelletier said that since the announcement, the festival raised nearly $9,000 in donations solely from individuals online who offered to chip in.
Individual donations ranged from $25, all the way to thousands of dollars.
"We were just getting notifications every two or three minutes."
It's not going to feel like a scaled back event. - Christian Pelletier, co-founder of the Up Here festival in Sudbury, Ont.
He added that a flood of new volunteers offered to join the team and sponsors appeared out of the woodwork to support the festival.
In addition to the donations by Up Here enthusiasts, volunteers and sponsors, the City of Greater Sudbury extended a hand to the festival.
Each year, the festival also receives funding from the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation's Tourism Development fund, as well as the City of Greater Sudbury's Arts and Culture program.
"So when the news from the province came through, immediately the City called us to see if there was anything that they could do to further support us seeing as we were already being funded partially by them," Pelletier said.
Pelletier believes that with the community donations and the help of the City, the festival is on track towards a full festival.
"It's not going to feel like a scaled back event," Pelletier said.
In a post on Up Here's Facebook page, the organizers announced the return of some key pieces of the programming that were originally cut.
"Artist Katie Green will be coming to Sudbury next week to paint a mural at the back of 84 Station on Elgin," the post said.
The three day event will host 50 concerts across downtown Sudbury.
Pelletier confirmed that five full murals, which is the most the festival has set up in a few years, along with large scale art installations will be back on full display.
He says that this support from the community and the City is an indication of the impact and value the murals add to the downtown area year round.
"They really transformed the way that we kind of understand and navigate our neighbourhoods and that really, really resonates with people."
Future approach to funding
Pelletier said after the events that unfolded over the past few weeks, he is hoping for change when applying for future provincial funding.
He said dozens of other festivals across the province are in chats with the Ministry of Tourism about the inconsistent application deadline.
"The one impact that we hope we've had is to go back to those original deadlines where we used to apply in October and we had an answer in April."
In addition, Pelletier said organizers across Ontario are also pushing the Ministry to allow them to apply for multi-year funding to help them plan ahead.