With a little more than a month to go until the first bands take the stage for Stars and Thunder, CAO Dave Landers hopes the upward trend in tickets sales continues.
The update on ticket sales, sponsorships and other activities planned for the eight-day music festival were up for discussion at the May 7 council meeting.
In April, 2,086 tickets worth $520,870 were sold for the event running from June 24 to July 1 at Hollinger Park in Timmins.
While that is a significant increase over last April when 428 tickets were sold, overall sales for the second edition of the festival are down.
By the end of April last year, 13,708 tickets worth $3 million had been sold. This year, 5,683 worth about $1.5 million were sold.
In 2017, the overall sales at the end of the festival had 21,353 tickets sold.
“We will continue to need good ticket sales from here right through to the day of the event, right up to Canada Day, in order to ensure that we’ve got the best bang for our buck and the best product offering for people who are attending the festival,” said Landers after the meeting.
Ticket prices for the festival increased May 1.
Going forward, a VIP pass is $500, while the general admission pass is $300.
“VIP daily passes have gone on sale now and we’ve seen that there’s some uptake in those as well so we’re tracking that to see how the sales are going to go on individual VIP passes,” he said.
This is the first year the daily VIP tickets are being offered, with 500 available for each day of the festival.
According to Landers, the most popular tickets are for the VIP area. From some of the feedback he’s received, people wanting a general admission pass will pick it up closer to the event because they know there is a greater capacity in that area.
For individual days, he said Canada Day is the most popular.
“We are tracking it on a weekly and daily basis as well, and we should probably share that at the next update for the festival. But Canada Day is a very popular one, I mean it’s a great lineup on that day and of course it’s our headliner Bryan Adams coming so we expect that it would be as such,” he said.
The update for council also included where the cash and in-kind sponsorships are at.
Even though cash sponsorships are three times what they were last year — $455,250 compared to $151,250 in 2017 — the inclusion of one company had Coun. Pat Bamford ask for a recorded vote when it came time to accept the staff report.
“What bothers me is that UP Cannabis is still on that list, second from the top,” he said.
Bamford has concerns about having a cannabis company as a sponsor when youth will be present, and also questions if it is legal for them to advertise at the festival.
Mayor Steve Black noted that council voted to approve the sponsors at a previous meeting.
“All of our agreements go through a legal review with our legal team before we sign them and that is underway currently,” Black said.
Landers also told council that they are following up on Bamford’s concerns about liability and the new legislation. He said that the sponsorship agreement also has phrasing built in so that the city can back out if a legal review says they shouldn’t be in it.
In the recorded vote, Bamford and Coun. Joe Campbell voted against accepting the report.
Overall, the budget for the festival is $5.7 million, which is up from 2017 when it cost $5.5 million to run. In the inaugural year, it generated $5 million, leaving a $559,458 shortfall.
To get a better idea of the cost of the festival, however, Campbell believes staff hours have to be accounted for.
“Once a month, 25 of our senior people meet at the McIntyre arena and leave there with things to do,” said Campbell. “If you’re ever going to really know what this thing cost you, somehow you have to calculate the amount of time that our senior people are spending on this going forward.”
This year, the Urban Park downtown Timmins is also expanding during the event.
The Stars and Thunder Village will run from Monday, June 25 to Friday, June 29 and include inflatables, rock wall, buskers, music, and more.
On Canada Day, free activities will still be offered for residents, however the location for that is still being decided.
If you want to got to the concerts, you can pick up tickets at starsandthunder.com or in person at the city hall tax counter during regular business hours.
