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RMOW clamps down on festival information

Mayor to look into 'new policy'
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Why redacted? Economic impact numbers for the 2013 Tough Mudder are blacked out. Photo by Clare Ogilvie

The municipality is refusing to release numbers showing the economic impact of the Tough Mudder event, which received more than $100,000 in taxpayers' money last year.

Even the mayor is perplexed by a recent internal decision that every number in Tough Mudder's Economic Impact Assessment (EIA) be blacked out from the public.

It appears the economic impacts of all future events will be kept secret too, unless the event producer is willing to release the numbers. This, despite the fact that more than $900,000 in taxpayers' money was used to augment third-party events this year.

"Apparently what's happened is the Festivals, Events and Animation (FE&A) team has determined that all of these Economic Impact Assessments are potentially confidential because of a competitive advantage concern and they came to that conclusion with the influence of Tourism Whistler," explained Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, who looked into the matter upon Pique's request.

"I need to have a conversation with (Mike Furey, chief municipal administrator) so that I can figure out if this is the new policy because this is not consistent with what's happened in the past."

Tough Mudder's EIA is the second to be completed in 2013 — one of a series of EIA's paid for by Whistler that provides in-depth information about event visitors and how they spend their money.

In a recent report to council Whistler's Manager of Strategic Alliances John Rae reviewed some highlights from the program this year including Tough Mudder stats. They show Whistler was at 90 to 93 per cent occupancy for the Friday and Saturday nights of Tough Mudder in 2013 and in 2012. Compare that to the same weekend in June in 2011 when there was no event and occupancy was at roughly 60 per cent.

It's clear the event had significant economic spin offs in Whistler.

In September Pique was told to contact Tough Mudder directly for the report.

After several emails and phone calls requesting the information from Tough Mudder, to no avail, Pique submitted a Freedom of Information request to the municipality for the document.

Pique requested the report from Tough Mudder again this week but did not receive a reply by deadline.

Weeks later the document was delivered in the mail with every number redacted, blacked out in bold blocks. It came with a letter of explanation from Shannon Story, Whistler's head of the Freedom and Information and Protection of Privacy, stating that the information could not be released under two specific sections of the act — one dealing with third-party trade secrets, the other with the financial interests of a public body.

The redacted numbers include the economic spinoff to the province and to Whistler as well as the tax revenues generated by the event.

Other event producers, who have released their reports or, at the very least, the high-level numbers from their reports, weighed in on that decision this week.

"It's ridiculous... not to give the economic impact," said Sue Eckersley, of Watermark Communications. "There's nothing proprietary about that number."

Eckersley previously released the 2012 EIA on the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, which showed net economic activity of $13.9 million in the province, of which $7.1 million occurred in Whistler. Total tax revenues supported by the festival reached $6.4 million.

Similarly, GranFondo Canada released its results from a 2010 and 2011 EIA, the former showing $5.5 million economic activity in the province, a number that grew to $8.2 million the following year. The total to Whistler was $1.1 million in 2010 and $2.7 million in 2011.

"We feel that the type of event that we stage is a feel-good type of event in that it promotes physical fitness and healthy living and green transportation, volunteerism, among other things. But it also contributes to the local economy," said Lindsay Carswell, GranFondo's director of marketing. "It's something that the general population is really I think just beginning to comprehend. It's easier to understand that there are economic impacts from a movie being shot in your community.

"It's in our best interest for the good of the event... to share information like that."

Like Tough Mudder, both World Ski and Snowboard Festival and GranFondo had municipal augmentation money in 2013.

Tough Mudder received the third largest investment at $112,000, behind the $250,000 for Ironman, but ahead of $90,000 for Wanderlust.

"Personally, I believe that it should be part and parcel with the agreement: if you are going to receive FE&A money, I believe that you should be held accountable for the spending of that money and therefore the economic assessment report that follows that," said Eckersley.

"I don't think you can go and take tens of thousands of dollars from the province, then from the municipality, i.e. from taxpayers, then say 'well, now this information on a very broad sense is proprietary.' Unless you can show completely that it's going to cause some kind of business hardship to you."

The mayor has difficulty understanding that decision, particularly as it relates to the big picture numbers such as the economic activity generated in the province by the event and the economic spinoff in Whistler.

When asked if those numbers should be confidential, Wilhelm-Morden said: "Well, that's where I'm having some difficulty. I personally do not understand how those numbers could be seen to be putting the third-party producer at some kind of competitive disadvantage. I don't understand that."

The mayor said she would be encouraging the release of the numbers but is waiting to speak to Furey.

"We're making decisions about the investment of tax dollars, i.e. RMI monies, into various festivals and events, and taxpayers ought to know what kind of bang for their buck they're getting."