News that the Calgary International Children’s Festival is being cancelled after 32 years in operation has saddened members of the Airdrie Children’s Festival Society but they say it won’t affect their event in any way.

On Thursday, the Board Chair of the Calgary Festival Carri Clarke cited a challenging economy, an unsustainable operating model and a decreasing amount of corporate sponsorships as being the reasons for the event’s cancellation. The Society is currently in the process of being dissolved.

Tara Levick of the Airdrie Children’s Festival Society says everyone in their group expressed sadness at the news.

“Our whole committee is just really sad to hear about it. Festivals like Calgary’s are what our little festival in Airdrie is trying to be and we’re just really sad that after 32 years they had to close their doors.”

However, with the inaugural Children’s Festival in Airdrie being hailed by nearly everyone involved as a huge success in 2017, Levick explains they’re moving full speed ahead with plans for next year.

“It doesn’t change anything for us. Our model is to have it remain being free for everyone in Airdrie and we can only do that because of the generous support of the local business community and the awesome residents in Airdrie. I don’t think we’re going to change anything I think we’re just going to keep pushing forward. I don’t think we’re ever going to try to replace Calgary’s festival but if we can learn from some of their mistakes, we’ll definitely try to do that.”

Levick says the Airdrie Festival Society has no plans to go after any sponsorship that may be available in Calgary with the demise of the festival there.

“We’ve had our first committee meeting to start planning for next year and that’s definitely not in our plan. We went local last year and we’re happy to say that we were fully funded by business in Airdrie and we put on a pretty great first year, one-day festival. Our plan is to go to two days this year. If we need to look beyond Airdrie we definitely will but our model that we’ve created in Airdrie seems to have worked for the first year.”

Levick says the group is just beginning to make plans for next year’s event and haven’t formally approached last year’s sponsors yet but most that were involved in year one were pleased with the success of the event and have said they plan to be back for 2019.

According to Levick, they’ve just finalized the dates for the next festival with the City of Airdrie. It will be a week later than in 2018 and will go June 1st and 2nd, 2019.

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