Vancouver fireworks festival cancelled ‘indefinitely’

A fireworks festival that draws massive crowds in Vancouver every summer has been called off due to a shortage of funding. Will it ever return?

Vancouver’s Celebration of Light has been cancelled “indefinitely” due to lack of funding, organizers announced Wednesday.

The annual fireworks festival at English Bay has drawn more than a million spectators to the beach every summer for decades.

The Vancouver Fireworks Festival Society says it came to the difficult decision after “months of outreach to governments and the business community” and that it no longer wants to go “cap in hand” each year to keep the event running.

It cites financial troubles over the past three years including rising production costs, the elimination of federal funding, a “dramatic” reduction in provincial support and declining private-sector investment.

“For 33 years, this event has been a cornerstone of Vancouver’s summer—a shared experience that brought families, friends, and visitors together from across the province and around the world,” VFFS co-chair Michael McKnight said, in a news release announcing the move. “Ending that tradition is incredibly painful, but we simply can’t continue.”

This is not the first time the future of the festival has been in limbo due to a lack of funding.

In 2009, organizers announced the event was cancelled, but after a number of private sponsors swept in the show was back on.

Through the 90s, the festival, then known as the Symphony of Fire, was funded by tobacco company Benson & Hedges—but the sponsor pulled out in 2000 due to advertising restrictions. After that, the City of Vancouver began paying for policing and clean-up costs associated with the festival, which was previously covered by the cigarette brand.

HSBC Bank, BC Hydro, and others saved the Celebration of Light in 2001, and as of 2012 Honda has been the title sponsor.

“To say it hurts to make this decision is an understatement,” executive producer Paul Runnals, whose event company BrandLIVE runs the festival, said in the release.

“VFFS and BrandLIVE have exhausted every option to keep the festival going. Our hope is that by being transparent about the financial realities, that governments and partners might step up to create a long-term solution that allows the Honda Celebration of Light to return stronger and more sustainable at some point in the future.”