The following article appeared in the December 14 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
Tourism services looking to develop additional events
Ribfest and Hillside may be getting some company.
That’s because the city is eyeing a new festival for the Royal City as a means of attracting tourism.
There’s no money earmarked for the initiative yet, but city staff have started to explore options and talk to the province.
Sue Trerise, manager of tourism services for Guelph, said a new festival needs to be homegrown and have community support.
“It has to be authentic and indigenous to Guelph,” she said. “There’s no point in parachuting something into the area. Citizens needs to be interested to get that volunteer commitment.”
Some of the ideas being considered include:
A springtime poppy festival that celebrates Guelph’s strong gardening ethic. It could tie into the city’s connection to John McCrae and the symbolic meaning of the flower.
An eco-festival that taps into Guelph’s environmental protection and preservation ethics.
A heritage or architecture festival that celebrates Guelph’s historic limestone buildings.
Councillor Ian Findlay offered another suggestion during a recent council workshop about setting priorities.
He thinks the new festival should tie into Guelph’s agricultural history and its current image as an agri-food hub.
“It’s part of branding Guelph. The defining of Guelph. What are we selling to the world?” he asked.
He suggested an ice cream festival in the dog days of August would be a family-friendly event highlighting Guelph’s dairy farming connections.
He said handcrafted dairy products from the surrounding community would be part of the event.
Talking to stakeholders, including the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, would be the next step, Findlay said.
“It’s exactly the kind of thing that fits with Guelph,” he said. “This is about history. This is about celebration. This is about community. And we’re having ice cream on a stinking hot day.”
Most of Guelph’s current festivals are held in the summer and last a few days.
“It makes a lot of sense to program for a different time (of year) rather than a time that’s already successful,” Trerise said.
Right now, the gap falls between January and June. That’s when hotel rooms are empty and tourism numbers fall.
And attracting people to the downtown core is important because a lot of other tourist attractions are there, Trerise said.
The next step for city staff is to talk to other tourism partners — hotels, restaurants, attractions and the local business association — to see if there’s shared interest.
The representative from the Tourism Ministry will conduct workshops with the city and its partners in the new year, Trerise said.
What type of festival would you like to see in Guelph? Visit our 59 Carden St. blog at www.guelphmercury.com and have your say.