Admission fees not popular at Alianait fest

JACKIE WALLACE

This year’s expanded Alianait Arts Festival drew more than 1,000 people over 10 days, with most people attending free events rather than paying for entertainment at opening and closing concerts.

The festival set out to push the boundaries of what audiences may expect from a typical northern arts festival.

While traditional throat singing, storytelling and drumdancing were part of the program, so too were a hip-hop concert, a film screening, a multi-cultural coffee house and a closing concert that ended with a heavy metal band playing under the midnight sun on Canada Day.

“People from around the world and from across Canada live in Iqaluit,” said Sylvia Cloutier, a committee member of the festival who taught throat singing workshops, sang at the coffee house and helped organize the popular hip-hop night. “It’s an opportunity for all kinds of different artists to get exposure for their work and to celebrate diversity and talents of all sorts.”

For Cloutier, it was exciting to see northern artists perform at home rather than take their talents south, and for artists from across the territory to come together.

With a large number of non-traditional performances in the lineup, Alianait president Heather Daley was pleased to see that the audience was always overwhelmingly Inuit.

At most events the crowds were also full of young people, which is exactly what Jonathan Cruz, a break dancer that festival organizer’s brought up from Ottawa for the hip-hop concert, wanted to see. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity to come up here and give energy to the kids,” he said. “It’s a good way for people to express themselves and it’s a great way to kick off the summer.”

While the hip-hop concert and dancing workshops that Cruz participated in were free, he thought that charging money for the opening and closing ceremony wasn’t a good idea. “You want everyone to be able to come out,” he said.

This is a criticism that Daley heard more than once over the course of the festival. “You don’t want to seem elitist and you want to be inclusive to the community, but we need to pay for everything somehow,” she said. “I mean, it’s only $15 and people spend $10 on a pack of smokes.”

About 300 people attended the opening concert, short of Daley’s goal of 400, and although attendance to the free events in the afternoon on Canada Day was strong, the number of people dwindled to about 200 when the time to show tickets for the closing concert came around.

The money raised through ticket sales went toward covering the festival’s $200,000 budget. With a grant from Heritage Canada, corporate sponsors and lots of support and freebies from the local business community, the festival came close to covering costs, although Daley said a little extra fund raising may be needed.

According to Cloutier, the festival also fell a little short on staff. “We relied on volunteers and it’s a lot to ask of the same people to be there every day for the whole festival,” she says. “I also think it really shows that we really need a theatre, or an art house, or place where we can put on shows.”