After two-years of lockdown and cancellations, many of Toronto’s top festivals and events are set to return in person this summer.
Organizers for some of the biggest festivals are planning ahead for their grand return after a tough two-year hiatus.
“Well, it’s been brutal,” said Executive Director of the Canadian National Exhibition Darrell Brown told Humber News.
The CNE is one of the top summer events in late summer that many people attend. It has been hard hit by the pandemic, Brown said.
“We essentially lost over $70 million in revenue. We normally would take in around $35 million a year in terms of revenue and a lot of people don’t realize we don’t get government funding,” he said.
“We fund ourselves, so we are not for profits.”
Last year, the exhibition was at risk of being permanently shutdown after losing $6 million in 2020 cancellation.
A petition that was orchestrated by City of Toronto councillor Mike Layton had collected more than 6,000 signatures to stop the CNE from closing.
Other festivals that were affected by COVID and are now planning to return include the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, Toronto Pride, Open Doors Toronto and the Taste of the Danforth.
“We actually are hopeful that we can do our event,” said Mary Fragedakis, Executive Director of GreekTown on the Danforth.
“We want to do a taste of it — and for it. Our members and fans want us to do Taste of the Danforth,” she told Humber News.
Taste of the Danforth is one of Canada’s largest street festivals that happens along the GreekTown area of Danforth Avenue just east of downtown.
Fragedakis said it is a huge event and that planning take months.
“We’re closing a major corridor in the city for three days. In some instances, portions of the street are closed from the Thursday night. So we need many months to properly organize and execute this event,” she said.
It’s the same with the CNE.
Brown said that normally while the CNE is happening in any given year, organizers are already planning for the following year. Now, they are going to plan for both this year and next year, he said.
“The challenge right now is getting enough money not only to fund the 2022 CNE but also to carry over and allow us to properly plan for future CNEs,” he said.
Reopening the exhibition this year will be different because of restrictions and new technologies on social distancing and contactless payment.
“We’re hoping to be able to have a cashless entry system in place and hoping to increase the ability to pay without having to to pay over cash,” he said.
“We’re also looking at trying to create an effective Wi-Fi system that operates across the grounds reliably, so that we can build in some technology that helps people to find things they need to find, without having to access them physically.”
Brown also notes that this year they will be able to operate all indoor and outdoor activities. It’ll be a matter of controlling the traffic flow in having stations for disinfection, he said.
Fragedakis said festivals and and return to normalcy in the summer is what everyone needs.
“We need more fun in our lives. Yes, in a really, really difficult two years.”