Review proposes changes to shire’s event grants

A REVIEW of the Surf Coast Shire council’s Event Grants program has recommended some changes to the grant criteria as well as the window in which they are offered.
Councillors considered the officers’ review of the program at their meeting on Tuesday.
Since it was established in 2014, the Events Grants program has supported more than 60 community and major events held throughout the shire.
The 2020-2021 program has $138,000 allocated to it, comprising $50,000 towards Signature Events, $67,500 to Major Events and $20,500 to Community Events.
The review, to create “the best model for supporting a thriving and varied calendar of events, which reflect and celebrate the unique attributes of the region”, makes 10 recommendations to what would now be known as the Event Grants and Sponsorship Guidelines.
The largest of these would be the introduction of a Sponsorship category to replace Signature Events, with an open funding limit.
This would enable premium tourism and community events to have greater scope for multi-year funding consideration, provide increased opportunity to leverage marketing benefits of events, and enable the council to engage with high-profile events (and their audience) on a year-round basis.
The Major Events category would be replaced with Tourism Events, which the council would limit to three years of funding unless the event was then elevated to the Sponsorship category.
Tourism Events would have to demonstrate high levels of visitation and economic benefit, with an off-peak focus, and be eligible for up to $10,000 of funding.
A new category, Boutique Creative and Special Focus Events, would not rely on high levels of external visitation or economic benefit, and be eligible for up to $7,500 of funding.
Boutique Creative events would focus on specialised arts and/or cultural events more commonly found in capital cities or larger regional centres that attract visitors (often in winter), enrich the lives of residents, and market the shire to a new and different audience.
Special Focus Events would champion and give special coverage to social, cultural, health or environmental issues in the community, including Indigenous culture, sustainable living, gender equality or physical and psychological health.
The Surf Coast Shire review recommended opening the grant round in February rather than September (for example, grants for 2021-2022 events would open in February 2021). It received “very strong feedback that the existing September application window was challenging for event organisers”, as it could be up to 21 months before an event was conducted.
The “peak” event period would also be reset to comprise Christmas Eve to January 31 plus the Easter period (Good Friday to Easter Sunday) but not include February and March, as “there are often quiet weekends in between January and Easter”.
“Modifying what we call ‘peak’ expands opportunities to attract a new tourism event in the period between peak summer and Easter.”