Celebration of Light to return in 2010!
 

Celebration of Light sponsors will be back
This year's sponsors say they'll sign on for 2010

John Ackermann/The Province VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) | Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 6:35 am

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The Celebration of Light fireworks competition will be back again next year. Organizers say 400,000 people turned out for the last show on Saturday night, a larger than average crowd boosted by the World Police and Fire Games.

Last winter, the society that runs the event announced there wouldn't be any fireworks this year due to a lack of funds. But sponsors like Hy's Steakhouse and The Keg restaurant chain stepped in and have now informed organizers they'll be back next year too. 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Celebration of Light fireworks competition.

Well, it's nice to know they won't be crying wolf again this year.

Mr X, I know you were involved in attempting to get the fireworks revived earlier this year, and at some point you were unable to talk about a lot of the goings-on. Can you share a bit more about it now?

And how confident are you now, that it will be properly-run and financed in 2010?

Well, I've been relatively out of the loop since the event was saved in the spring. But I have been recently in touch with some people, and the restaurant sponsors are really doing it out of their own good-will. The Keg's owner absolutely loves the show, and they really want to help keep it going.

Next year's event is dependent on other sponsors staying with the event. The Keg may stay in, but it's pointless if the older sponsors jump ship....but I highly doubt they'll jump ship.

If they had more sponsors, ideally the organizers would make the shows a little longer (5-minutes longer for 30-minute shows), higher quality productions (the show was slightly watered down during the Benson & Hedges to HSBC transition because of a lack of funds: Benson & Hedges paid for the ENTIRE multi-million dollar bill while HSBC only sponsors $400,000 and relies on other sponsors and the city to step in to fill the funding gap), and/or if they ever struck sponsorship gold (which isn't likely) they'd add in a fifth night to the show (with the City's blessing of course).

Of the three Symphony of Fire shows around the world (Vancouver, Toronto, and Cape Town), Vancouver's show is the most resilient even with our funding issues. The Toronto event, now with the largest sponsor being Ontario Place, is largely watered down and I believe one night shorter: it's only 3 days with one opponent competitor (opponent, Canada Day fireworks on July 1st, and then the grand finale). And the Cape Town time show is gone I believe, but came back briefly for one year in 2007 I think.

Montreal's L'International des Feux Loto-Québec is the event that Vancouver organizers always look up to. It has stable funding, being both a private and public event: the fireworks are launched at La Ronde, which is Montreal's amusement park (owned and operated by Six Flags). People pay to get into the park for front row seats to the fireworks (with actual seats to sit on), while public watching areas are located outside the park. La Ronde of course pays for the fireworks, but so do sponsors like Telus (you'd think they'd be helping out our show in the city they are headquartered in!) and Marriott Hotels, and of course there's the front row ticket revenues.

The quality of Montreal's show is incredible as a result, not to mention it's three months long! It's also an international fireworks competition, with each night being designed by a different company from a different nation. There are also non-competing days (the first show and the last show/openinga nd closing shows) It lasts from June to August, 3-4 shows each month, for a total of 12 nights!

:previous:

I spent a summer living in Montreal and experienced all of that first hand. Definitely something to strive for, and oh so great watching the fireworks while on a ferris wheel at La Ronde. :)

Looks like they might be cancelled again this year, seriously the organizers, city and whoever really need to get their act together this is ridiculous! I thought the Keg was going to sponsor this event now?

http://vancitybuzz.blogspot.com/2010...cancelled.html

This city is so sad. It really has no idea what people want.

Its just giving us foreplay and were never ever gonna get to the sex!

Poor Vancouver, she will always be a virgin.
;)

Drama queens. How many years in a row can they cry wolf?

Dear god...again? I was in the team that helped save last year's event but I ain't doing it again...this is just ridiculous.


So much for the goal of wanting better fireworks for this year's show...we're back to begging for money just to keep the show alive. The Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks are an example of what the Celeb. of Light should be:
• Video Link

^Why? Those were messy and not very coordinated to the music...and they were too low. Celebration of lights are 10x better than that

I think he is referring more to the scale of it. A lot of people have always felt that the fireworks are really sparse during most of the programs and only ante up during the finale. I guess most people want bigger bangs.

If we were to take anything from the Olympics, I'd have to say the LiveCity yaletown fireworks were great in terms of complementing the music.

It is really sad to hear this funding issue happens year after year.
An additional $35,000 needs to be found by next Tuesday so the fireworks can be transported in from abroad.
Source from CTV: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/l...ritishColumbia

The 4 day event has an estimated annual attendance of 1.4 million people.
So if the organizer starts to charge each attendee $1 to watch the show, they would have more than 1 million dollar funding that can be used.

I don't know how you can charge anybody who has some sort of view of the sky :P

:previous: How ridiculous is it that the City and Province can shovel out hundreds of millions for the Olympics, yet can't get their act together for the chump change that this proven event costs? :koko:

Funding request to the Province was rejected. The city doesn't have any extra money either.
Source: http://www.theprovince.com/travel/Ce...404/story.html

What about the federal government? Each year they hand out millions and millions to festivals with "national importance" including the Calgary Stampede, Toronto CNE, and just last year the PNE was included.

Shame that the province couldn't pick up on the tab...it's a miniscule investment.

No it is not possible to block the view of the sky but the whole English Bay beach can be converted into a paid zone for prime location viewing.
I don't think a lot of people would mind paying $1 dollar for a guaranteed spot on the beach.
The organizer really needs to be more creative in finding the funding.

If I remember correctly, last year the federal government did grant some funding to the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. So the federal government is a possible funding source. However the application takes time and there is no guarantee it is available every year.

And yet the City has money to consider building a home for homeless chickens. :koko:

As to the Province, I heard some stories about the giveaway of BC 150 money that would make your toes curl, yet now they're crying poor. Maybe they should have done some better planning.

Ahh that makes sense. But, thats because the music they use at the Celebration of light is usually slow to start and ends with a bang, kind of like a Symphony because after all it used to be called Symphony of fire ;)