With arts and cultural events increasingly taking place as part of festivals, the size and number of wine and film festivals in B.C. is at an all-time high.
Organizers of the Fall Okanagan Wine Festival estimate that their 30th annual October extravaganza was bigger than any previous Okanagan wine festival.
“We could well be up by a double-digit percentage for attendance,” organizer Blair Baldwin told Business in Vancouver.
Last year the fall festival attracted more than 180,000 unique visits with one visit being the equivalent of either one ticket bought for an event or one winery visit.
Organizers have been tracking attendance of the fall wine festival for the past 17 years and each year has shown growth, Baldwin said.
He added that, including the Sun Peaks Wine and Dine, the 13th annual Okanagan Winter Wine Festival will nearly double in size next year from five days to nine days: January 15 through 23.
“When you double the capacity, you obviously have the vision to double the success,” he said.
Vancouver’s largest wine festival has similarly been growing in size.
The Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival included more events in 2010, even though total revenue was shy of the $1.96 million that it generated in 2008, when Italy was the festival’s theme region.
“It seems to me that there are two divergent trends when it comes to festivals,” said director Harry Hertscheg.
“There’s been a growth in the number and size of festivals. I’m also finding more niche, trade-specific events for sommeliers and buyers that are happening throughout the year.”
Hertscheg believes that the economic downturn has accelerated the trend toward more trade-specific events happening throughout the year because winery owners want the biggest bang for their buck.
Instead of spending money on a consumer-based wine event where they may sell a bottle of wine to an attendee who they impress, winery owners want to spend that money on an event where impressed wine tasters are likely to buy several cases of a wine they like.
Hertscheg’s festival expanded last year by including the inaugural Canadian Wine Summit. That event is a platform for wine industry insiders to discuss issues related to Canadian wines and international wineries that are starting to enter the Canadian market.
Next year, Hertscheg expects to host an event that is aimed at both sommeliers and private liquor store owners.
Film festivals are even more strikingly following the trend toward events being clustered into festivals.
“Festivals are doing well, whereas specialty film exhibition outside festivals is suffering terribly,” said Alan Franey, who also oversees operations at the Vancity Theatre year-round and is the director of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
Demand for festivals has spawned about two-dozen film festivals annually in Vancouver.
Franey’s festival generates about $1 million in annual box office receipts and is Vancouver’s largest film festival. It is also the second largest film festival in Canada after the Toronto International Film Festival. This year’s VIFF featured 359 films, most of which are independently produced.
It attracted 148,000 people, down slightly from the 149,135 people last year.
Other local growing and popular film festivals include:
- the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (in November);
- the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (in August); and
- the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (in September).
Home theatres and large TVs are cheaper than ever before, but that hasn’t kept people from going to movies.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Canadian and U.S. movie theatres draw nearly three times more people (1.414 billion) than do the two countries’ theme parks and major sports leagues combined.
Independent films, however, attract a shrinking 2.1% of box office receipts.
“More good films than ever before are being made today that will die on the vine without ever being seen by an audience. It’s not just there’s more supply. Demand has shrunk,” Franey said.