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Toronto events and festivals

Just For Laughs cancels 2024 Toronto festival amid restructuring​


This year's Just for Laughs Toronto festival has been cancelled after the organization announced it would undergo restructuring.

On Wednesday, Groupe Juste pour rire inc. (JPR) issued a statement clarifying that both the Toronto and Montreal festivals will be cancelled for the 2024 season.

“The company would like to clarify that the 2024 edition of the Just for Laughs Toronto festival will not take place,” it said in its statement. "Once the restructuring of the organization is completed, JPR hopes that the festival will take place in 2025.”

The news comes a day after the company announced it was filing for creditor protection and that it would not host its annual Montreal events. According to a release issued Wednesday, the financial situation of the organization left its leadership "no other choice than to initiate formal restructuring proceedings."

It hopes to revive the festivals in 2025, it said.

www.cp24.com

Just For Laughs cancels 2024 Toronto festival amid restructuring

This year's Just for Laughs Toronto festival has been cancelled after the organization announced it would undergo restructuring.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com
 
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AlbertC said:

Just For Laughs cancels 2024 Toronto festival amid restructuring​


This year's Just for Laughs Toronto festival has been cancelled after the organization announced it would undergo restructuring.

On Wednesday, Groupe Juste pour rire inc. (JPR) issued a statement clarifying that both the Toronto and Montreal festivals will be cancelled for the 2024 season.

“The company would like to clarify that the 2024 edition of the Just for Laughs Toronto festival will not take place,” it said in its statement. "Once the restructuring of the organization is completed, JPR hopes that the festival will take place in 2025.”

The news comes a day after the company announced it was filing for creditor protection and that it would not host its annual Montreal events. According to a release issued Wednesday, the financial situation of the organization left its leadership "no other choice than to initiate formal restructuring proceedings."

It hopes to revive the festivals in 2025, it said.

www.cp24.com

Just For Laughs cancels 2024 Toronto festival amid restructuring

This year's Just for Laughs Toronto festival has been cancelled after the organization announced it would undergo restructuring.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com
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The Star takes a deeper dive on the financial struggles facing organizations and festivals, including the Shaw Festival and Hot Docs:

www.thestar.com

Toronto’s arts organizations are in decline. Here’s a brief overview of the struggling arts scene

From theatre companies to summer festivals, arts organizations across the city are scaling back amid intense financial pressures.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
 
I'm assuming these festivals for the most part get their revenue from corporate sponsorship. There just isn't an unlimited supply of that available to be obtained, particularly once you get past the banks and major fast food chains. There's so many of them that it's probably unavoidable that some are going to fall away. Lake Shore Mardi Gras and Mississauga Waterfront Festival are two that I can think of that have already ceased to exist in recent years.

Edit: By coincidence, the annual IndyCar race, which in recent years has also stressed calling itself a "festival", has this morning said it is now to be called the "Ontario Honda Dealers Indy", perhaps related to the recent statement by the American arm of Honda that they are losing interest in remaining involved with IndyCar.
If you go back to 35 or 40 years ago, much of the sponsorship they had was subsequently made illegal in the case of tobacco, or I suppose socially frowned upon for associating anything possibly driving-related to beer and alcohol.
And I guess the rise of The Internet has supposedly made advertising more 'targeted' at potential customers, as opposed to just paying to put their name on some banner and hoping it might make a positive impression on a few people seeing it.
 
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christiesplits said:
The Star takes a deeper dive on the financial struggles facing organizations and festivals, including the Shaw Festival and Hot Docs:

www.thestar.com

Toronto’s arts organizations are in decline. Here’s a brief overview of the struggling arts scene

From theatre companies to summer festivals, arts organizations across the city are scaling back amid intense financial pressures.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
Click to expand...

The pandemic was a driving force here in as much as most organizations took on debt to survive those years and now have to service said debt.

Additionally costs have also risen, a few are discussed in The Star's piece, notably higher policing bills, but other costs as well.

****

Those items aside. I would suggest a couple of alternative strategies.

1) Not so much the neighbourhood festivals, but places like TIFF and Hot Docs, should rely more on endowment revenue. Its no mean trick to get the kind of donations to make that workable in Toronto, such donations for culture are rare.

But they are so helpful. Even a modest, well managed, 10M endowment spins off $400,000 a year, that can probably pay for most of your year-round management team (well not at TIFF, but I digress), it just provides stable revenue not subject to the whims of attendance, sponsorship or grants.

2) For the various neighbourhood fests in Toronto; I think there is an issue of them just blending into one another. The extent of having similar traveling lemonade stands, Bell booths or the like diminishes interest.

Lets take Taste-of-the-Danforth, arguably the most successful fest its type. Its a bit less Greek than it used to be (some variety is good, but you need a unique point of view); but sponsors aside, its a bit too resto-focused.

I would argue they need to find ways to highlight Greek music (contemporary not just folk); and Greek Cinema, and get the grocers in the area to highlight Greek Foods you can cook at home (and sample).

Interactivity is also good, how about free cooking lessons/demos for Greek food.

They also need to be more creative on ways to mitigate weather issues. That's a challenge for a street fest which you do want to be outdoors, but you have to mitigate the risk of a rainy weekend.
I also think they could get sponsorship from the Greek Tourism people by linking the experiences in Toronto with one's you could have if you visited Greece.

***

You can apply the above to almost any 'Taste of' fest in Toronto.

***

Long term planning is key, trying to do festivals with a short time horizon, essentially from scratch each year, requires a lot of volunteers and a lot of effort.. Getting multi-year plans and sponsorships in place helps. This is somewhere the City could help. Both by direct funding and by creating templates.
 
SubHuman said:
I'm assuming these festivals for the most part get their revenue from corporate sponsorship. There just isn't an unlimited supply of that available to be obtained, particularly once you get past the banks and major fast food chains. There's so many of them that it's probably unavoidable that some are going to fall away. Lake Shore Mardi Gras and Mississauga Waterfront Festival are two that I can think of that have already ceased to exist in recent years.
Click to expand...

To be fair there are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many festivals.

They need to get back to basics with things like the Beaches Jazz Festival, Pride, Caribana, etc. When you have neighborhood community events every other day there is simply not enough funding to go around.

Some festivals can be sized down as well. Take the Jazz Festival for example which years ago focused on a strip of Queen Street East. Now it is made up of multiple venues and performers over a period of weeks which adds to costs quite substantially.

I feel for some of these festivals but they are mostly small and insignificant.
 
There are way too many street festivals now, and they're all the same, similar to a traveling circus. I think it would be fine if a bunch of them get killed off. It blows my mind for example that for many years both the Polish and Ukrainian street festivals have taken place on the same weekend, in close proximity to each other, highlighting a similar culture. That seems rather dumb to me, but what do I know? They both seem to be well attended.
 
I totally get the festival burnout! There can be so many, and they do start to blend together after a while. But like you said, those cultural festivals like the Polish and Ukrainian ones are interesting - a chance to experience something new close to home. Maybe it's about picking and choosing which ones to hit up. For me, lately it's been about saving some cash, 💰 so I haven't been going to as many.
 
My funniest Toronto festival story is when in the mid-2000s the Church-Wellesley BIA held a fetish festival. It lasted one year and was pretty tame as far as these things go, but still a somewhat enjoyable 'adult' experience. Of course, some in the nabe complained and they went for a 'family fair' the following year. The event literally went from spanking demonstrations to bouncy castles within 365 days. I don't believe it ever returned and they just kept their attention on Pride therein after.
 
JasonParis said:
My funniest Toronto festival story is when in the mid-2000s the Church-Wellesley BIA held a fetish festival. It lasted one year and was pretty tame as far as these things go, but still a somewhat enjoyable 'adult' experience. Of course, some in the nabe complained and they went for a 'family fair' the following year. The event literally went from spanking demonstrations to bouncy castles within 365 days. I don't believe it ever returned and they just kept their attention on Pride therein after.
Click to expand...

North America {the U.S. and Canada) has never really made its mind up about tolerance of sex, particularly in a public space).

The U.S. as a whole is more prudish than Canada; though a lot of tolerance in Canada is legal, more than practical.

The U.S. in the form of Mardi Gras and Fulton Street in SF generally have open festivals that go further than anything in Canada........

Yet...Canada has more tolerance of nude beaches and bare breasts.

Its remarkable how stereotypical the difference is; the U.S. generally socially conservative, yet when its not, its comparatively open and rebellious and loud about it.

Canada, more tolerant on a day to day basis, but quietly............

****

Now compare to Germany's Love Parade........ LOL, makes Fulton Street or Mardi Gras seem tame.

Yet, amusingly, Germany's dating culture might be described as standoffish and uptight.
 
christiesplits said:
Trouble brewing at Hot Docs.

Hot Docs programmers reportedly resign en masse ahead of festival’s 2024 programming announcement
www.thestar.com

Hot Docs programmers reportedly resign en masse ahead of festival’s 2024 programming announcement

The departures marks the latest blow for the beleaguered movie festival, which shared earlier this month that it is running out of cash.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
Click to expand...

I wonder if the festival will be so scaled back this year that everyone left in protest?
 
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