Most events at the seven-day, rebranded Vancouver International Wine Festival, which starts today, are already sold out.
“We have 33 sellouts out of 54 events,” executive director Harry Hertscheg told Business in Vancouver February 22.
Known through its 35-year history as the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, the event was forced to change its name when operating deficits forced the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Co. shut down last year.
The charity festival has always operated separately from the theatre company, however, so it was able to find a new beneficiary in the theatre company Bard on the Beach.
The transition caused some sponsors to sit on the sidelines, but Hertscheg is aiming for the same $1.7 million in revenue that the festival generated in the past couple years.
Proceeds on that revenue, however, are likely to drop to $225,000 from what has tended to be around $400,000.
Much of that drop stems from higher operating costs, given that the Vancouver Playhouse previously donated some space for the wine festival to use.
However, the wine festival’s main fundraising event, its Bacchanalia Gala Dinner and Auction, will be bigger this year than in many years, Hertscheg said.
“Bard [on the Beach] is really championing the gala and helping ticket sales,” he said.
Hertscheg expects to generate $130,000 from ticket sales at the gala, compared with $98,000 last year. Other revenue at the gala comes from auction sales.
In February 2008, before the economic downturn, the gala fetched $293,000 largely from business executives besting each other with auction bids.
Goldcorp chairman Ian Telfer tendered that year’s auction’s biggest bid: $46,000 for a magnum of 1982 Petrus that was valued at $17,500 and was donated by fellow mining mogul and philanthropist Frank Giustra.
Canaccord Capital Inc. executives were also active in the bidding:
- Canaccord CEO Paul Reynolds bid $37,500 for a 12-bottle case of 1982 Mouton Rothschild wine valued at $20,000; and
- Canaccord founder Peter Brown bid $37,000 for a dinner for 10 at Whistler’s Barefoot Bistro and then donated it back to the festival.
This year’s festival will have 54 events, down from 64 last year.
“We have two fewer sponsored events,” Hertscheg said. “There’s no French event or Spanish event. That was their choice, as there are some financial challenges in the European Union. We will also have fewer European wineries.”
California is the festival’s theme region this year and Chardonnay is its theme grape varietal.
