Threat to Portsmouth International Kite Festival

[ekim]

Portsmouth City Council have recently published their proposals for reducing their budget for the next few years. This would appear to include a reduction in funding for the kite festival that could see it disappear completely in the next few years. Could this be the beginning of the end for this event?

Full story can be found Here

Mike

[Gareth Williams]

No major surprise really. Any council is going to be cash strapped and looking at ways to reduce outgoings on events that don't really produce a return. I'm waiting for everyone to start shouting at me about tourism, etc. after that last comment, but look at the likely economic reality.
1) Most of the invited flyers will be put up in hotels at the cost of the festival. So the income to the hotels comes out of ratepayers taxes
2) A large number of flyers will camp, and rarely if ever move off site, so provide no significant boost to the local economy
3) Most visitors to the event will be Portsmouth ratepayers or tourists who just happen to be there at the time. I would guess that the number of visitors who specifically go to Portsmouth for the festival is small. Again the impact on the local economy will be relatively small.

Any significant cut in budget is likely to see the Kite Society pull out if experience in Margate and Weymouth is anything to go by. But with a bit of luck, the shortfall can be made up from commercial sponsorship. Take Berck and Dieppe as examples. They both have a budget of about half a million Euros for their events, but look at the size of the list of sponsors, and note how many (or few) are public bodies.

[malcolmf]

I agree with Gareth's comments, for too long in the UK, have kite festivals and the organisers expected to funding for events to be from local councils, without trying to replace the funding from the business world. Now in times of economic difficulties ( even we are supposed to be coming of it), commercial businesses will consider what is in it for them, before coming forward.

In this day and age in UK we have to be realistic that kite festivals are dying out, as too much is expected from the organisers from invited flyers and campers and those who attend and want free parking and entry.

This is why I am trying to find sponsorship for Teston before it becomes a victim as well.

[ekim]

The following has been posted by The Kite Society on Fractured Axel forums

"Keith wrote -" I do hope the event continues, when budget's got tight at Weymouth the organisers stepped down..."

There were many more reasons than just budget cuts for stepping down from Weymouth , we would never give up on an event we felt was worth continuing with.

Actually Portsmouth's budget has been reducing over the last few years , last years was 10 percent, it was just not announced in the press. At least we have a few years to find sponsors. There are always companies interested in the event but council policies can be a problem. Hopefully we can find a way forward."

So Margate was obviously not an event worth continuing with then

Mike

[malcolmf]

I received an e-mail from the Kite Society in regard to postings about kite festivals, which they have requested me to post:

Some of which has already been mentioned in the last posting:-

"Any significant cut in budget is likely to see the Kite Society pull out if experience in Margate and Weymouth is anything to go by

Our answer regarding Weymouth has been copied from Fractured Axel - please note that there was no reduction in budget the year we decided to stop doing Weymouth - and there were many other reasons why we decided to stop.

Ekim

So Margate was obviously not an event worth continuing with then

Regarding Margate - can Ekim explain how a zero budget, no council support and no Town Partnership support makes us the bad boys here?"

I would add I have stated to Jon and Gill that any comments on our forum are the responsibility of the correspondents and not of Kent Kite Flyers as apart from the members area it is an open and transparent forum

I would also add that in regard to the Margate festival KSGB were not the bad boys. The event was originally funded in the main by The Town Partnership. No doubt money was put into the Town Partnership budget by Thanet District Council, but nothing is heard locally of this partnership anymore. Along with Gerty, I was personally involved in running kite events at Palm Bay many years ago which never received any funding from the local council, but one of the conditions put upon us was that all our publicity mentioned Thanet District Council supporting the event. It was only through our contact at the council that we obtained use of the recreation ground at Palm Bay for free and some equipment was loaned. This was when local councils were not feeling the pinch economically.

I am sure that Jon and Gill feel let down in many ways, as they have been involved in raising the profile of kiteflying in the UK and being involved in organising many festivals, bringing international flyers to our shores.