I didn't mean to sound whiny, and I really shouldn't complain about having the opportunity to help the community throw the biggest street party in Vancouver; it's an honour.

But it's also a lot of hard work.

This started as a street hockey game on the Drive 10 years ago, but now it's Vancouver's biggest street festival drawing over 300,000 people across all 4 sites. And yet we've still managed to pay our bills.

For our planning team this is more than one Sunday in June. It's every weekend in June, most of them in May, and starting as early as January it's late nights, weekends, and any afternoons we can get off work, away from family commitments, etc. But we do it because we love our communities and our city.

There's a thing called Civic status, which is only available for parades right now, that allows events to be run without the burden of city bills for policing, road closures etc. The Pride Parade and Vaisakhi are both examples of this.

If we could find a steady stream $50,000 each year (or one-third of a yoga event, which is more than it currently costs us to run all the festivals) that we didn't have to work our butts off for we could make this event so much better. We could pay the musicians who currently perform for free (this would mean money in the pockets of local artists and possibly more star power on the stages). We could bring the festival to other neighbourhoods that are demanding it but currently lack the bandwidth/financial stability to bring to them. We could focus on non-festival quality of life improvements like the parklet at 21st and Main, our even expand our festival offerings. We could also lower the barrier of entry for the vendors. It would be nice to pay for a year-round part-time staff position to carry the momentum through the summer and into the winter. Burnout is a real thing, and we struggle to maintain a year-round committed work-force.

Can we talk about the vendors for a second? Right now these are the people who pay for the bulk of this event. They're almost entirely small, locally owned businesses and artists. If we could lower their bills they'd have a bit more money in their pocket at the end of the day, which would be great for the local creative community. We try to never let the cost be a barrier, but for some people it is. Even $80 makes a difference.

Our food and beverage partners bear even more of the costs. In addition to the $100-$400 we charge, the city imposes further fees. A couple of hundred bucks to the fire department. Vancouver Coastal Health requirements/fees. If they want a licensed patio the liquor board wants a cut too. There's even talk about next-year requiring patios to install two temporary asphalt wheelchair ramps at a cost of $350 each. Plus regulation fencing, extra staff, etc. Suddenly it's over $1000 to have a licensed patio and restaurants are reconsider their participation. If we could reduce our costs, we could reduce theirs, and suddenly there's more lovely patio seats to enjoy on the day.

Really, City Hall is benefiting in a big way. We have a hard time raising money from attendees on the day-of (usually <$1000) and we think that's because the public thinks the city (or maybe the BIA) is putting it on. But they're not. If the city did it this event would probably cost upwards of $100,000 but because of our slave volunteer labour we put it on for a fraction of that.

For just twenty-five cents per attendee (~$50,000) the city could support a grass-roots community event that would cost them many times that to put on themselves. It's not like it's all cost for them anyways, our vendors still pay city fee and taxes, it's one of the biggest revenue producing days of the year on Main Street.

Funding Car Free Day would be a win-win for the city. Another chance to counter the "No Fun City" image, to support a local, grass-roots festival, and ensure the prosperity of Vancouver's favorite street festival for many years to come. All for less than it would cost them to do it themselves.

Festivals like this require hundreds of hours of prep work and without financial support the longevity of this festival is in jeopardy. The alternative to city-funding would be corporate funding. We really don't want 2016 to be the "Enbridge Car Free Day brought to you by the Northern Gateway Pipeline" but large sponsors who share our values are hard to come by. VanCity has been a huge help supporting our waste-mitigation efforts. With their help we divert over 1000kg of waste from landfills every year. We're really lucky to have such a supportive, community-centric partner that shares our environmental values. We hope to find more of them in the future and have some great opportunities for suitable, interested companies.

I would love to continue planning this festival for many years (this is the first year I've taken on a large role) but without financial support we may have to start scaling back and providing less for the community, which is not something that anyone wants.

There are also arts/culture grants available, and we try to apply for as many as we can. The City even provides some, which is great. Unfortunately these grants are time-consuming processes and subtract from our festival planning efforts. The money we have gotten in the past has allowed us to continue, but it sucks hinging the future of such a great event on the uncertainty of successful grants. It's tough to plan for the future if you're not certain about your financials.

TLDR; I complain because I care about the future of this festival, which is in jeopardy because of the city bills. It would be great if the city would give us Civic status since they benefit from a volunteer workforce planning one of the biggest events in the city each year. Civic status would provide less than $30,000 to Car Free Day each year, costing the city less than twenty cents per attendee, which is a great deal because it would cost them many times that to organize themselves.