Strategies that Vancouver International Wine Festival (VIWF) organizers have used to return their charitable celebration to a growth curve provide lessons for organizers of other large events.
The VIWF had to completely remake itself when a lack of operating capital forced its beneficiary, the debt-ridden Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Co. (VPTC), to dissolve in 2012.
Then 34 years old, the wine festival needed to find a new beneficiary for the approximately $400,000 in proceeds that it generated each year or it would lose its non-profit status and be unable to fulfil its purpose as a fundraiser, VIWF executive director Harry Hertscheg told Business in Vancouver.
Finding a new beneficiary was not difficult. After all, what arts organizations would not want annual cash donations?
Bigger challenges for the 54-event VIWF included grappling with new expenses for accounting, bookkeeping and sponsorship management – all functions that the former VPTC performed.
Those costs cut into proceeds, so last year VIWF could provide only about $225,000 to new beneficiary Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival.
"We now have a track record for what our expenses are and can account for those new costs," Hertscheg said. "They have not increased this year."
But when the final tally is in, revenue will likely rise more than 10% from the $1.7 million that the festival generated last year. That's partly because more expensive wine was served at some festival events to coincide with France being the festival's theme region this year and bubbly being its theme style.
The best-attended events at the festival remain its main tastings at the Vancouver Convention Centre, where 177 wineries from 14 countries poured about four wines each. Organizers added a new Saturday afternoon main tasting, partly to attract an older demographic who no longer wish to attend evening events.
"Prices for the main tastings have gone down," Hertscheg said before revealing one of his tips for how to build a successful festival: pass savings onto customers whenever possible.
Last year, main-tasting ticket prices were $95, including the harmonized sales tax (HST). Because the B.C. government eliminated that tax last April, the festival this year was able to charge $89 for the same tickets and generate the same revenue.
Another of Hertscheg's tips is to hold the event as close as possible to the same dates each year. For much of the festival's first few decades, its dates bounced around between February and April. One of its only restrictions was that it never took place during spring break. The last three years, the festival has been held in late February.
"People now get that the festival is at the end of February," Hertscheg said.
His final lesson, however, is to be flexible with timing of events within the festival, particularly when conferences and other events arise that may steal attendees.
BMO Capital Markets hosted a major mining conference in Florida the same week as VIWF's February 24 through March 2 run.
So Hertscheg moved VIWF's biggest grossing event, its gala, to February 22, before the official start of the festival.
Mining executives have been huge supporters of VIWF's gala in past years, with Goldcorp chairman Ian Telfer once bidding $46,000 for a magnum of 1982 Petrus that was valued at $17,500.
"The mining community has been supportive of the festival," Hertscheg said, "so we wanted to make sure they could make it this year."
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