The much anticipated financial figures for the eight-day Stars and Thunder festival have been released ahead of a special meeting of Timmins city council on Tuesday.
According to an updated report from Mayor Steve Black, the city's expenditures for the festival totaled $4,415,000. This includes an additional $70,000 for security and policing which wasn't included in Black's final pre-festival update in June.
The total direct revenues came in at $3,874,000, which would mean a loss of $541,000 and an average household cost of $24.30.
However, the city did receive $369,570 from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation on Wednesday for work on Hollinger Park before and after the festival. Black's update lists the total cost for site prep services as $380,000. Crews dumped truckloads of aggregate around the edges of the park to facilitate the staging area and vehicles, and additional electrical infrastructure was installed. Temporary fixes were executed on the historic Hollinger grandstands ahead of the festival as well.
The successful grant is listed under 'revenue', and some of those funds are expected to be used on soil remediation in the park, as well as permanent refurbishment of the 80-year-old grandstands.
Listed as 'other festival costs' and thus not included in the report's bottom line are items such as having free Timmins Transit operations for seven consecutive days, costs of bar services and costs of goods deducted from total bar revenue, and banked time from city staff.
Also not included is $15,000 in costs for the eight days of activities and attractions at Gillies Lake. The total cost was $90,000, however the city had $75,000 in its Canada Day reserves.
Final ticket sales came in at a total of $3,225,000, as crowds came out in droves to see musical acts such as Keith Urban, Hedley, and Simple Plan.
The 80 year old grandstands in Hollinger Park were given a spruce up in advance of the Stars and Thunder festival, with more repairs on the way. Andrew Autio for TimminsTodayAccording to the figures in Black's update, the total cost to each household could be as low as $1.35, if the NOHFC funding is included, as well as $125,000 worth of unused fireworks, and $16,000 worth of 'sponsor benefits'.
"The event after factoring in all revenue made possible by the event and remaining inventory to carry over to 2018 was at minimal cost to the City of Timmins ($30,000 total or $1.35 per household), acknowledging there was an impact on staff and banked time, staff fatigue, and lost transit revenue as a result of the festival," reads the report.
It also lists several benefits of the festival, including the obvious cash coup for Science Timmins who benefited to the tune of $211,330 thanks to staggeringly popular daily 50/50 raffles.
Full Beard Brewing, the Rotary club, and food vendors are also listed as having done very well during Stars and Thunder.
Community pride and employee morale is also listed as a benefit in Black's report. City and NOHFC staff are still calculating the overall economic benefits to the area. According to the report, a survey carried out by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce stated that over 50 percent of businesses who responded said they benefited from the festival. An increased in 'tourism recognition' is also listed in the benefits section, as the festival was included in Expedia's '17 cities to visit in 2017' list.
Over 4,000 out-of-town tourists are also listed as making the trek to Hollinger Park at some point during the eight days.
At the most recent council meeting, multiple Councillors strongly expressed their support of the city hosting a similar event next summer without seeing any of the financial statements, and praising the hard work of both city staff as well as community volunteers.
The special council meeting will get underway at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
