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Events like festivals, sports, and concerts bring culture and entertainment to a city. They attract tourism and can be an economic driver. So what does being an ‘eventful’ city look like?
Welcome to Kelowna Talks, a podcast presented by the City of Kelowna that explores the "why" behind the decisions that shape your city. Tune in for weekly episodes with host, Bob Evans, Partnerships Office Director with the City of Kelowna, as he welcomes guest subject matter experts to explain the processes and decisions that influence the lives of the citizens.
Kelowna Talks - EP 15
Chris 00:01
We want to generate events, we want events to be contributing meaningfully and purposely to our communities, values and priorities.
Zoe 00:12
Welcome to Kelowna Talks where we explore the why behind the decisions that shape your city. Together, we open the curtain and dig deep into current issues, plans and policies that come out of City Hall. Thanks for joining us as we talk about Kelowna, and the topics that matter to you.
Bob 00:37
Hi, everyone, I'm Bob Evans, Partnership Director at the City of Kelowna and host of our Kelowna Talks podcast. I acknowledge that our community is located on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Sylix Okanagan People. Well, I feel like we've talked about this way too much lately, everything we have and haven't done the last two years during COVID. And as we start to get back to normal, I'm still reminded about all the time we had personally, that I had, that personally missed doing events, hockey games, festivals, concerts, live music, and so on. So I'm encouraged that we're finally slowly opening back up again and start to see some of these events that we missed so much, and I personally spent one or two days on patios enjoying libation, and some music, so it's been great. Now, which leads me to what we're talking about today, we're chatting with Chris Babcock, our Event Development Supervisor to talk about the new event strategy and our signature event. Welcome, Chris.
Chris 01:32
Pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.
Bob 01:34
Yeah. Nice to have you. So we'd like to start these off. Finding a little bit about Chris Babcock. Who you are, what you do for fun and when you're not focusing on your city work what brings a smile to your face, Chris?
Chris 01:47
Well, I guess I'm from a small town in the Kootenays, Trail BC. I say that's my home, but I've been away from it longer than I've lived there now. But happy to call Kelowna home now. I've been with the city, I think 18 going on 18 years. And it's been enjoyable to be honest, the whole time. But in my spare time, you know, what brings a smile to my face really, Are my kids. My three kids. I have a boy who's almost 16 And boy, girl twins who are 14, so they're all heavily involved in their sports and activities. When I'm not at work, I'm working as a cab driver. Yeah.
Bob 02:32
And what about you personally? What... You know, what, what are your, what's your thing?
Chris 02:37
Oh, my thing. You know, these days when I have time to do it is mountain biking. So yeah, I'm into the downhill stuff and still into scaring myself and doing that sort of thing. And, you know, break a bone here too, but still try to act young, think young. But my body's telling me a little different sometimes.
Bob 02:58
Yeah. Well, I have a few years on you. And I still try to act young, probably to my demise as well. But that's just what we do. So, good to hear that. Are you a live music fan?
Chris 03:09
Yeah, I am very much. So. I love live music. I regret to say that I don't play an instrument. That's one of the biggest regrets I have in my life. But I always tell myself, it's never never too late. But, yeah, live music. I think live music is superior to any form of recording that you can listen to, of course, I do that as well in my truck and everywhere else. But when you can get in front of a live musician or a band. That's pretty special.
Bob 03:38
Yeah, no, that's good to hear. And so my understanding is the council just approved our first ever event strategy. Tell us about the strategy. And how long has it been in the works to get the strategy to in front of Council?
Chris 03:51
Yeah, the strategy, it's, it seems like it's been a while, like we started this process in 2017. But of course, it wasn't the full five years. We were working on it, because COVID, of course, gave us some different responsibilities and duties in the meantime. So really, the strategy itself has probably been three years in the making. And how I can best sum it up is it's more of a philosophical shift on how our community and our in the city perceive events in the community. So and what I mean by that is, we don't want to be just a container of events or a city that hosts several different events. We want to generate events, we want events to be contributing, meaningfully and purposely to our community's values and priorities.
Bob 04:45
So what do you mean by, help me understand generating events? What do you mean by that?
Chris 04:50
Well, one of the one of the things is the signature event that we've were talking about and trying to generate that not having an external organizer Come in and saying, Hey, we got this great event for Kelowna, you guys should host it. That's not going to go away. Of course, we, we welcome all those proposals, but we want to, we want to get involved in creating and generating those experiences for our community. Right? Something that, you know, we will work with the public on what they want to see what's valuable to them. And then how can we package that into an event where everyone can come down and enjoy it feel pride, and be part of the community?
Bob 05:33
Okay. Well, I'm gonna ask you more questions about that special event in a minute. But I guess, interested to see if you agree with this or not, but has Kelowna rested on its laurels a little bit in terms of its natural beauty and just the fact that people want to come here, regardless of what we have to offer? Or, you know, is it have we focus too much just on special events of the summer? We need more year round events? what's your what's your take on that?
Chris 05:59
Yeah, that's a, it's a tough one. We definitely do have the desirable destination that people want to come here. And I'd be lying if I said that it didn't help us when we went after and procuring those big events. I think our destination really played a part in our being successful in some of those, those bids, but we are still considered a summer town. It's tough to start looking at the shoulder season, even though our shoulder season now as expanding to it. We traditionally thought it was shoulder season of July and August. It's now expanding earlier and later. But when you ask in our public engagement exercises, the lake was the number one thing people thought of. Right, when they thought of Kelowna, so that summertime feel and identity is still still prominent.
Bob 06:51
Yeah, it's probably probably a natural, obviously, it's just a matter of how do we mature from that position to a little bit more diversity, I guess, in our seasonal offerings.
Chris 07:00
That's right, yeah. And yeah, and that's part of our strategy, too. So the the event development focus area of the strategy is part of that is going after those big events, you know, like Skate Canada, the Brier, you know, things like that. And that's our opportunity to go after some of those events that may generate business in the off season, in the shoulder seasons in the winter, and stuff like that, and bring a different demographic to Kelowna to showcase those seasons as well.
Bob 07:32
Yeah, fair enough. And you mentioned major events. So that brings me to, I guess, the tear in a lot of our eyes. So when we didn't, we weren't successful with the memorial cup. Landing that back in Kelowna, so that was, you know, that's, that's a bit of an issue. And with that, as a foundational statement, what are our strengths and weaknesses in Kelowna, as we try to attract these events to our city? Can you help me understand that a little bit better?
Chris 07:56
For sure., and it's a good question. So the strengths of course, we just talked about the desirable location, you know, and I will say that council has been, this council, the last two terms really have been very supportive in giving us some resources to proactively go after those events. So we have a major event fund that we use to bid on local events, right. So it is a very competitive process to bid on something like Memorial Cup or the Brier or Skate Canada, what have you. So we're competing with municipalities across the country. So having that resource and support that financial resource and support helps us. Now, one of the things I think we could improve on is as a community getting together and working on those bids a little bit more collaboratively than we are now. So what happens now as you have myself, my colleagues from Tourism Kelowna, basically kind of leading the charge on what events we want to identify and go after and are able to, and then we start the negotiation process with different stakeholders in town, you know, the venues, the accommodations, different key stakeholders like that. But it would be nice if that step was a little more collaborative, rather than us, not trying to convince them that this is a good thing. And we should go after this. And you guys should help us and support us, but it'd be nice if it was a collective. And we really, as a community, and as business community, as well work together to make to achieve these goals.
Bob 09:41
Okay. I was gonna ask that as the next question is, why do we need an event strategy? What does it do for us as a community? And I would guess that that's one of the key aspects is just getting the collaborative environment ripe for these kind of conversations.
Chris 09:54
Exactly. Yeah. And having counsels endorsement behind the strategy, it really does help It's a strategy that we could also apply internally, right. So traditionally, we, as the city in the different departments that comprise our organization, we all have our set objectives and our goals and priorities and budgets and things of that nature. So, even internally, from an event perspective, of course, you know, we could maybe even be moving away from that regulatory body that we're traditionally have, and move towards, Hey, how can we make this happen? And not to say that we're not doing that now. Like, I mean, we have a really good events committee in place, which comprises all of those different departments.
Bob 10:44
So it's competitive, you know, that's, that's a big deal. Obviously, if you're going to be competitive, you need a strategy.
Chris 10:49
Exactly. Yeah. And then we need people to embrace us strategy..
Bob 10:53
Without going into a whole bunch of detail for sake of time, like, what are the key elements of of the strategy that you want to get across to our listeners?
Chris 11:00
So I guess the key, there's four key focus areas of the strategy, that's event development, which we're talking about, right there. Event support, you know, how can we further support the different events that come into town that are already here? Whether that's through volunteer program, financial assistance, different funding programs, the third focus area would be event spaces. So how can we work with other departments on identifying or being part of the process for capital investment in different facilities? But that goes beyond. Also, how can we identify or discover different creative spaces to host events? So, you know, for example, rather than City Park, could we host something fun and memorable on top of a parkade? Right, so different little ideas like that? And then event, event management is the last focus area. So it's how can we help our organizers through streamlined processes permitting processes? How can we help, you know, our internal departments streamline those type of duties as well? So the support mechanisms are are valuable, too, because, you know, everyone is strapped for time, resources. How can we make it easier and more effective for everyone?
Bob 12:27
Okay, no, no, good. That's, that's a good summary. So we're an eventful city? Is that a question? I'm not sure. A statement...
Chris 12:35
We definitely are in the transition to be an eventful city. So like I said, at the top of our conversation here, you know, an eventful city is not just hosting a whole bunch of different events. It's actually being proactive and holistic and collaborative to, you know, generate and host events, but use events as a tool to help contribute to our community values and priorities.
Bob 13:00
Okay, so with that collaborative approach, I am guessing that there was a lot of interaction with the various community groups, the general public to inform the strategy. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Chris 13:12
Yep, we did. We spent a lot of time engaging with those key stakeholders, the public being, you know, really number one stakeholder out there. But you know, the Downtown Kelowna Association, Tourism Kelowna internal departments, emergency services, hotel, motel accommodations, our different cultural groups out there. So we feel we did a really good job of engaging all of those people. We're not going to stop there, we're going to keep reevaluating and reviewing our process and be accountable and all that kind of stuff. So I see that engagement process continuing and doesn't work until unless we have that feedback and are really being accountable to ourselves.
Bob 13:57
Well, I think it's important to as you mentioned, that you'll look at constantly updating and providing or listening to feedback and updating your your strategy and the documents. That's so critical. You know, as we write lots of documents inside the city, it's important for everybody to understand that these are not just a snapshot in time of it's a living, breathing document. I'm guessing that's your strategy with that one, for sure.
Chris 14:18
For sure. It has to be flexible, because the event world is dynamic, and it's ever changing. So we, that strategy needs to be adaptable and flexible.
Bob 14:28
For sure. Okay, so this is the fun part of the conversation. Well, it's not that it hasn't been fun, but the signature events you know, what is why? What is where's it coming from? Tell me about the signature events. What does that mean and what's going to happen? Yeah, get us excited here for sure.
Chris 14:42
And it is exciting. I think we've been talking about it for you know, a few years a while. And one of the things that we have a, you know, on a regular year, pre COVID 2019. I think the last count we had over 180 events now of different types and sizes, of course.
Bob 15:02
What's the definition of the city sponsored event are on city property? Outside on city property?
Chris 15:05
Yep. So we're very busy community in that regard. Now we have, I want to say maybe around 10 events that are over 20 years in duration, and that's a good thing. They become staples in our community. But those events are either targeted to a specific demographic like the Fat Cat festivals, across the lake swim, Knox Mountain Hillclimb, targeted to a specific demographic or theme. But we really don't have one major event that you know, is synonymous with Kelowna's identity, which is a whole bunch of different aspects, right. So our goal is to create something, start something that embraces all of those aspects of Kelowna, all the diversity, all the different cultures, all of our interests, sports, and culture, and everything like that. So that's the impetus behind it. Of course, COVID hit, you mentioned at the top of our conversation, it was nice to see and come back into all those events after two years of being absent. So we recognize that as well and thought, you know, what, this is the perfect time to go to council, ask for budget and some seed money to create something of that regard. So when we come out of this pandemic, we can maybe, you know, give something back to the community so everyone can come back and enjoy it.
Bob 16:32
Okay, so you haven't told me what it is though yet, Chris. I, you know, you're maybe circling here and I want to go to the bullseye of okay, what's this going to look like? What can you tell us? What can I look forward to?
Chris 16:42
Well, we're going to brand it. It's called Kelowna Made. So and the idea behind that is, like I just said, we are a whole bunch of different things now. And maybe decades ago, where Kelowna was, you know, identified as a sleepy retirement place, but by the lake, right. But of course, we've got so many different aspects to our identity now that we want to embrace all of that, you know, if we can, as best as we can. So we're going to brand it Kelowna Made. So we want to have a local emphasis on the event, we want locals to come out and showcase their talent, you know, whether it's through sport, or culture, music, or ballet or dance or whatever it is come out. And that's going to be our motive for the future years is to get our local talent to be showcased.
Bob 17:38
Yeah, okay. I'm a partnership guy. So I like the idea of the partnerships that I'm sure that you're hopefully attracting corporate sponsorships and corporate attention to it as well. And absolutely, money's always a bit of a challenge for us. So when is this going to happen? What are the next steps? When are you going to start sort of laying out all the you know, the scheduling?
Chris 18:01
Yeah, so we're going to start small. So August 27, we're going to have a one day festival and schedule of different activities for the residents to come and enjoy and try out and things like that.
Bob 18:13
But so did you say it was a community park or...
Chris 18:16
City park, Yeah, we've seen a lot of events come and go. And a lot of that is because they've, they're a victim of their own success. So we definitely want to start small, and purposely to grow it responsibly, and meaningfully. So the grand vision, I would love to see the whole city animated with different events. And, you know, almost you can almost get like a passport or get a bucket list and go to different places and try them out and experience and all that kind of stuff. But for now, we're just going to start small, and keep that grand vision in mind so we can strive to that.
Bob 18:56
So what's the philosophy behind starting small? Can you expand on that a little bit?
Chris 19:01
Yeah. Well, you know, the public has even said they'd like us to see it, start organically grow slowly, you know, they've seen, I guess, the negative side have some successful and popular events in the past. And they've grown so large that they've grown.
Bob 19:20
They've had a negative impact. And in a lot of, in a lot of ways, perceptions. Yeah,
Chris 19:24
Yeah. So we don't want that to happen. We want to be able to grow it slowly identify those areas of improvement for every year and address those addressed the gaps, the challenges that we're going to experience because that's what happens with events, there's always room for improvement. Right? So we want to make sure that we're able to tackle that effectively and not get overwhelmed right off the bat.
Bob 19:46
So is this co-hosted by Tourism Kelowna and The City are who who are who are the organizing principles?
Chris 19:51
So the city is leading it. But we have recruited different stakeholders in the city residents, you know, yep. So they make up the committee. They're like Tourism Kelowna, Downtown Kelowna. They're all going to be involved. But we have a group of very community-minded volunteers who stepped up and wanted to be part of this. And each of them have their, their respective backgrounds and expertise to help us in those particular areas, you know, like sponsorship and marketing and things like that. Yeah.
Bob 20:24
Okay. Chris, you mentioned that we're the victim of our own success sometimes with these major events that we've had historically to the city. And I can think of a few. The hydroplane boats, we had Center of Gravity, people say, hey, well, you know, are they coming back? What's going on with those events? And is that just something that's come and gone? Or is there a future for major events like that, that attract people from all over Western Canada?
Chris 20:49
Yeah. And those examples are good examples of those events being a victim of their own success. You take Center of Gravity, for example, very polarized on people's perception of that event. On one hand, people love it that I talked about demographic before that specific demographic, the youth demographic, yeah, I really loved it. And to be honest, I went to it every year as the event supervisor, and the vibe in there was fantastic. And from a regulatory perspective, for an event like that, it was pretty dialed in as far as security and medical and everything like that. But, you know, terrible tragedy aside, it was very, very well produced. The problem with that event, though, was after the event was done. And then you had 8000 20 something year olds being flushed into the downtown core, which wasn't something we were able to handle as a city very effectively due to the limited resources we would have, right? RCMP ambulance fire. They were stretched very thin during that weekend.
Chris 20:56
So would we see another Center of Gravity come back or something like that? It's something we just have to mature into and grow into then? Or is that
Chris 22:09
I think what I'm hearing, to be honest, I think we matured a lot because of that event. Now, would we ever entertain something like that? Again? Of course we would. But would we permit it? Again, I think time will tell we would have some different checks and balances, I think what we would want to see is the location, the right location? Like I said, that event could have been very successful if it wasn't hosted in the downtown core. But, you know, did I think it was a good event? Absolutely. I did for that specific demographic, for sure. It brought in a ton of money. So if you're of the business nature, that economic impact was something that you were looking forward to every year. Now there are some, like I said, didn't like the idea of the content of the event or how some of the kids dressed, the perceived activities that were happening inside the event. You know, those were happening. But like I said, when you're inside the event itself, it was pretty well regulated. And, and dialed in, like I said, so would we ever consider? I think it would be irresponsible for us not to consider any event that comes to town. We want to be open. But we also want to have the ability to say, hey, you know what, this one is not a good fit for Kelowna. And that's part of the event strategy.
Bob 23:29
And that's tough, right? That's those are tough things to do. Okay, so I'm looking at you as you're talking about that. And thinking about you at the Center of Gravity thinking all your friends must say, how do you get a job like this? How do you get to be the party guy for the City of Kelowna? So, I didn't ask you that question. How did you fall in or purposely achieve this role in job? What led you here?
Chris 23:48
Well, I think what led me here to be honest, you know, I, when I worked for the city, I started in the sport and recreation, of course, or active living in culture department, I came up through the sport development ranks. But being from small town Kootenays, I've always enjoyed tradition, and I've always had a place a high value on community. So when this job came open, I definitely competed for it because I felt I'd be a good fit, because of my my desire and passion for community. And I think events are a great way to represent that community feel and and contribute to the type of place that we all want to live.
Bob 24:34
Wow, good. That's a great answer. And one other thing that I came to mind as you're talking again, my mind just keeps rolling is Meet Me on Barnard. You know, that's been one of the great successes over the last couple of years and you're obviously one of the kingpins and in that event, as well as my understanding
Chris 24:49
I absolutely love Meet Me on Barnard. And I love when we talk about what this strategy is trying to achieve. Meet Me on Bernard is the prime example, our first example anyway. Because you talked about collaboration, you talk about a holistic approach. You know, we have a variety of different city departments involved in this. The DK is heavily involved Tourism Kelowna, we're all acting, and to quote our corporate vision, so to speak, we're all acting as one team right now. And we're doing that with other associations and organizations, not just city departments. So it's very refreshing to see.
Bob 25:33
Okay, Chris, we're kind of coming towards the end of our time here. Is there anything that we missed that you want to make sure you can get across to our listeners, and either the event strategy or the special event coming up?
Chris 25:44
Yeah, no, nothing in particular, you know, visit our outdoor event website, and you can take a look at the strategy in detail, but also just, you know, for everyone just to get out there and enjoy those events. I mean, it really, you know, that social well being and community pride and feeling it goes a long way. So yeah, I encourage everyone to get out there.
Bob 26:09
Excellent and what people can't see is the smile on your face when you're describing this. And thank you, Chris Babcock and we look forward to seeing how you develop us into an eventful city.
Zoe 26:23
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kelowna Talks. For more conversations about topics that matter in your community, subscribe on Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you liked what you heard, give us a five star rating and review and share Kelowna Talks with your friends and neighbours. For more information about this podcast and other big community conversations, visit kelowna.ca/communitystories