Investing in Canada’s Arts and Live Music Infrastructure: A National Call to Action

Festival and Events Ontario (FEO) would like to share this message from Riverfest Elora.

We are writing to share an important national impact statement prompted by the closure of Riverfest Elora, one of Ontario’s long-standing independent music festivals.

While this announcement marks the end of a beloved cultural event in Centre Wellington, Ontario, its implications extend far beyond one community. Riverfest Elora’s story reflects the growing pressures facing festivals, venues, and live music organizations across Canada and underscores the urgent need to re-examine how arts and culture are valued, funded, and sustained at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels.

Attached below is a statement intended to contribute meaningfully to conversations among policymakers, arts leaders, associations, and industry partners nationwide. It draws on local experience, national data, and sector-wide realities to outline why arts and culture must be recognized as essential infrastructure for Canada’s economic, social, and cultural wellbeing.

We share this in the spirit of collaboration, reflection, and action, and with hope that Riverfest Elora’s legacy can help inform stronger, more resilient cultural frameworks across the country.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this statement.

With respect,

Riverfest Elora

Centre Wellington, Ontario

Securing the Future of Arts Investment

Community & Economic Impact Statement

For 15 years, Riverfest Elora has been more than a festival in Centre Wellington, Ontario — it has stood as a cultural anchor, a tourism catalyst, a driver of economic growth, and a source of immense community pride. On November 18, 2025 Riverfest announced its closure. Although Riverfest was structured as a commercial for-profit entity, it was operating in practice as a community-service, non-profit cultural organization. Rising production and infrastructure costs have consistently outpaced revenues, sponsorship has declined, and there is insufficient funding support for festivals, making continued operations financially unsustainable. As Riverfest prepares to end its operations, we are compelled not only to acknowledge the loss of a beloved cultural event, but to consider its significance in the broader context of how arts and culture fuel thriving communities — from small towns to entire provinces and the nation as a whole.

Our 2023 Economic Impact Study underscores what Centre Wellington has long recognized: arts and culture are essential infrastructure for thriving communities. Riverfest Elora was a powerful local example of how arts and culture generates economic activity, attracts visitors, cultivates identity, and creates opportunities for emerging artists to be developed and discovered.

But local festivals and events are only part of a much larger story. As the Canadian Live Music Association outlines in its 2025 report Hear and Now: Understanding the Power and Potential of Canada’s Live Music Industry, Canada’s live music sector in 2023 generated a staggering $10.92 billion in total contribution to GDP, delivered $3.73 billion in tax revenue, and supported over 101,600 full-time-equivalent jobs — with $5.84 billion in labour income. Live music and associated tourism contributed nearly $9.9 billion in visitor spending, showing how deeply intertwined live music is with travel, hospitality, retail, and other sectors.

These figures are proof that live music is a major economic engine for Canada. The industry supports tens of thousands of jobs: from performers and technicians to venue staff, promoters, and hospitality workers. It brings tourists to cities and towns across the country, fills hotels, restaurants, and shops, and sustains small businesses. It helps keep downtowns vibrant, draws people together, and strengthens local areas — all while generating substantial revenue for governments and communities alike.

Beyond economic impact, festivals like Riverfest Elora made a sustained, meaningful investment in Canadian artists. Over its last four years, the festival engaged 165 Canadian bands compared to just 17 non-Canadian bands, resulting in a 97% Canadian lineup. This was a long-term investment in Canada’s creative talent that offered artists exposure, professional performance experience, and a chance to connect with audiences and supporters. Without festivals like Riverfest Elora, there will be a void in the infrastructure that nurtures emerging artists, validates their talent, and gives them a stage on which to grow.

The loss of Riverfest Elora—and the pressures that festivals, venues, and live music organizations across our region now face—underscores a hard truth: we cannot expect arts organizations alone to carry the burden of sustaining this vital public good. When festivals and cultural institutions collapse or disappear, communities lose more than entertainment: they lose jobs, economic activity, tourism, cultural identity, opportunities and pathways for artists, and the social benefits that come with shared experiences.

This moment must serve as a call to action — not only for towns like Centre Wellington and their residents, but for the province and the country at large.

To citizens across Canada: Show up for the arts. Attend concerts, visit festivals, support local artists, participate in cultural life, and advocate for cultural spaces. Your attendance and support matter and impact the future vibrancy of Canadian communities.

To businesses (local, regional, and national): Consider playing a larger role in supporting arts organizations through sponsorship, in-kind support, partnerships, cross-promotion, or collaborative programming. Your engagement is a strategic investment in the cultural fabric of Canada and the creative ecosystem that gives rise to growing talent and innovation, in addition to its obvious benefits as an opportunity to build brand loyalty and improve employee engagement and satisfaction.

To municipal, provincial, and federal policymakers: As you design budgets, economic development plans, cultural policies, and funding frameworks, recognize that the arts are critical infrastructure. Consider the data from Hear and Now showing that the live music industry contributes billions to GDP, supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, and fuels tourism and ancillary sectors – and invest in it accordingly. Support venues, festivals, and community arts organizations that help build the next generation of Canadian artists, enrich our social fabric, and strengthen our economy.

If we fail to provide support to the arts, we risk irreversible losses: small venues closing, festivals disappearing, fewer opportunities for Canadian artists to be discovered, fewer jobs in creative and hospitality sectors, quieter communities, a diminished cultural legacy for future generations, and degraded levels of local and national cohesion.

While the loss of Riverfest Elora is significant, the festival’s legacy does not have to end here. This moment can be a turning point: a call to build resilient, sustainable cultural infrastructure across municipalities, provinces, and the nation. By investing boldly and intentionally in arts and culture, we honour what festivals like Riverfest Elora have built, and ensure that creativity, community, shared experiences, and Canadian talent remain at the heart of our country’s identity.

Riverfest Elora

www.riverfestelora.com

Instagram + Twitter: @riverfestelora

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