Deficit leaves Kultrun music festival worried about future

After years of bringing world music to the Waterloo Region, organizers of the popular Kultrun Festival are appealing to the public for financial help after failing to secure four major grants earmarked to help pay performers involved in the 2016 summer shows.

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The festival found itself with a $25,000 deficit after it was denied grants from the following organizations:

• Celebrate Ontario.
• Ontario Trillium Foundation.
• Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation.
• Waterloo Regional Arts Fund.

Artistic director Isabel Cisterna said musicians for the two outdoors stages had already been booked and their contracts signed for the July festival when she learned the money would not be available.

"When we heard we weren't getting the grants, it was already too late," Cisterna said, noting the Kultrun Festival had its best attendance record with 15,000 spectatorsthat year.

"We had to honour the contracts and pay the fees."

Not-for-profits are not allowed to carry deficits, and while Cisterna believes new grants will come through for the 2017 festival, the money can not be used to pay for the previous year's shortfall.

Request for donations

Without public support, Cisterna worries the Kultrun Festival will be jeopardized and the two-day free outdoor performance will have to end.

Several fundraising initiatives are underway in the hopes of raising $20,000, including an on-line campaign and an empanada sale every Sunday at Waterloo's Relish Cooking School.

Cisterna said a donor has also come forward with a $5,000 gift to help paying down the deficit and she adds she iscurrently not drawing a salary.

"I believe so much in what we do that I am not ready to go without a fight."

Grants harder to get

She stressed the organization behind the festival, Neruda Arts, has never before run a deficit in 15 years of putting on music and arts performances, but that competition for grants is fierce.

"So many people are asking for funding and there are different priorities from year to year," Cisterna said.

The biggest lost to the Kultrun Festival was a $30,000 grant from Celebrate Ontario which had been approved four years running.

Celebrate Ontario contributes to dozens of events across the province, including Kitchener's Blues Festival and Guelph's Hillside Festival.