If you look on the calendar, at almost any time of the year, surely you will find something to do most weekends, as various festivals and events are planned in our communities.

One place, however, you probably won’t find an event, except for a few scattered here and there, is in Bracebridge.

But now there is a plan in place to correct that.

It has taken almost a year, but Bracebridge now has an official strategy when it comes to events and festivals. This all came into being after the cancellation of the annual Festival of the Falls, which ran for a number of years.

After the event flopped, it was decided that Bracebridge needed a direction and, of course, policy, in order to see the same sort of success with events that neighbouring communities enjoy.

And in fact, the policy is already starting to pay dividends. Or is it?

One new festival will be coming to Bracebridge in June 2008. Muskoka Summerfest will be set up at an undetermined location during the last weekend of the month, and it will be benefiting from the town’s new policy, to the tune of up to $10,400, plus some in-kind services.

And while one might congratulate the town on its policy, given a new event is coming to Bracebridge already, the proposal for Summerfest was initially put on hold by the town earlier this year in order for the policy to be approved first.

Which brings us to the question, will an entire year spent developing policy, which will only be of benefit to new events in Bracebridge, really pay off in the long run? And is this the type of business the town should be in?

Should the town not be hauling in the cash, rather than doling it out for these functions.

In Gravenhurst, festivals and events are a large part of the summer, and new events seem to pop up all over town each year. The town does hand out money to help the various organizations with these special events, and it also spends money to employ a special events co-ordinator.

There are three people currently working on events in Gravenhurst.

The chamber of commerce also pays for an event co-ordinator, and there is one for the wharf association. The Business Improvement Area had an events co-ordinator until recently as well. All of these people are working on different events in the same town, which doesn’t seem very logical, and the town continues to throw money away for events held by these different groups. In the past year alone over $20,000 was spent in cash and in-kind contributions to these festivities.

Muskoka Lakes is a different story altogether.

There are a number of special events throughout the year, but the ones that are held within the municipality are quite successful, and successful for one reason. It’s because of hard-working volunteers and a strong commitment from local businesses, not because bureaucrats sat around a table creating policy on how to handle events.

When you look at all of the really successful events in Muskoka, it’s most likely the ones that remain at the grassroots level that are the most successful, and our municipalities should keep this in mind the next time an event organizer comes knocking on their door.

KF