Town of Collingwood looks for new Elvis Festival operator

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Collingwood Council voted in favour of discontinuing the Collingwood Elvis Festival as a municipally-operated event following the 2019 edition, and will determine the best way to proceed with a transition of the Festival to a third party operator.
In response to the Parks, Recreation & Culture (PRC) Master Plan recommendation to give consideration to the repositioning or retiring of the Elvis Festival, PRC staff presented Council with recent years’ data showing a decline in attendance and economic impact, and identified the inherent financial risk that an event of this nature consistently puts on the taxpayer. As a result, the PRC Department recommended the repositioning of the Festival to a private operator model as a strategy to reduce continued financial risk on the Collingwood taxpayer, to ensure that the Festival remains in Collingwood, and to provide an opportunity to decide on how the municipal resources currently allocated to the Elvis Festival can be used in the future.
“The Town of Collingwood has accomplished a lot with the Elvis Festival during its management years and it has been a successful endeavor in many ways. Unfortunately the goal of maintaining the attendance numbers year over year has not been achieved and this is the one that directly affects the primary objective of generating economic impact,” said PRC Director, Dean Collver. “In order to reverse this trend it would take significantly more resources and this was not something that we felt we could put on the Collingwood taxpayer, particularly not when there are viable alternatives.”
Staff will now create a report for council with more information about the process of selecting a new operator. Council indicated that it wants to ensure that the Collingwood Elvis Festival brand value is taken into consideration and that the private operator has the capabilities required to manage the event.
The 25th Annual Collingwood Elvis Festival, still under town management, takes place July 26-28. For tickets and scheduling information visit www.collingwoodelvisfestival.com.

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