Organizers expect 'largest Hospitality Days to date'

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Bathurst Hospitality Days festival is gearing up for its biggest year yet with more than 5,000 people expected to attend the concerts and more than 90 per cent of the city’s hotel rooms already booked.

“It’s definitely the largest Hospitality Days to date and it looks like it’s the largest festival north of Moncton,” festival director and head of finance Mike Doucet told council during the April 15 regular public meeting.

Doucet said the festival more than doubled its band budget at $300,000 this year, which included booking The Barenaked Ladies and country headliner Tim Hicks, along with other “great bands” for the three days of concerts.

“That was quite an achievement,” he said of booking the Barenaked Ladies. “The original sticker price on that band would have made a lot of people turn away but we worked with them and we were able to find ways to cut the costs.”

The eligible age to attend the concerts was also lowered to 13, with the accompaniment of a parent or guardian of legal age, a change Doucet said was made after multiple requests last year.

The latest figures show 4,520 tickets have been sold for 2024, compared to 460 during the same timeframe in 2023, Doucet said.

With hotels nearing capacity, Doucet said the festival committee is looking at a location to offer camping without hookups to accommodate more festival-goers.

“There’s going to be a lot of traffic in town at the time,” he said.

At the end of 2023, the festival requested $50,000 from the city’s tourism accommodation levy and received $25,000 in advance to help book the 2024 bands.

Doucet requested the remaining $25,000 at Monday’s meeting, with a unanimous vote from council in favour of allocating the funds to the festival. A resolution will be made at a future meeting to make it official.

A bigger festival brings higher costs, with the budget for the 10-day festival sitting at about $600,000 this year, which includes the higher cost for bands, hotels and security, Doucet said.

As well as the bands, there are 48 events scheduled for the festival this year, and those include more programming for seniors and children than in past years, Doucet said.

Another major change will see the festival kick-off with fireworks on the first Saturday night instead of it being the last event on the schedule the final Sunday.

Doucet said the change was made to encourage the expected 20,000 attendees downtown to visit local bars and restaurants in the city before and after the show, since the majority of them are closed on Sundays.

To accommodate the change, the block party held downtown to kick-off the festival will be held on the first Friday night.

To drum up interest for the festival across Atlantic Canada, the committee has arranged a $2,500 festival giveaway to air on Live at 5 from May 27 to 31. Local company La Cave Media has also created a 15-second commercial that will air in the Atlantic provinces 86 times to an estimated 180,000 viewers each airing.

“It’s going to be great exposure for Bathurst. It’s going to be all over the place,” he said.

Following the presentation, Coun. Jean-François Leblanc said a quick conservative estimate he calculated shows the festival should bring millions in economic spinoff to the municipality.

“This is pretty amazing and you should be proud of that,” he said of the committee. “I know I am anyway.”

The full festival programming will be released online May 1 with printed programs available June 1.

The festival runs July 12 to 21.

Full details can be found at bathurstfestival.com.