ScotFestBC may be marching to another host city

Following last weekend’s Town Centre Park festival, the Highland Games may be packing their bagpipes for good, as festival organizers expressed dissatisfaction regarding their arrangement with Coquitlam.

“The current situation is unsustainable,” stated ScotFestBC executive director Mike Chisholm in an email to the Dispatch.

Besides running into rainy weather for four straight years, the annual celebration of Scottish culture has also seen funding reductions for federal, provincial and municipal governments, Chisholm wrote.

“The city reduced its casino-funded contribution to our struggling non-profit this year,” Chisholm wrote.

Asked if he envisioned the festival staying in Coquitlam in future years, Chisholm wrote: “No.”

Ideally, the city would like to keep the event in Coquitlam, explained Coquitlam’s senior manager of economic development Eric Kalnins.

“The positive economic and cultural impact [of ScotFestBC] is important to the community and we hope to see it continue as part of our diverse and evolving festival mix,” Kalnins wrote in an email to the Dispatch.

The city has consistently funded about 25 percent of the Highland Games event budget. Over the past three years, those contributions added up to nearly $270,000, Kalnins stated.

“We do appreciate all the challenges associated with rising costs of event production, with gaining sponsors and competition for funding,” Kalnins wrote in an email to the Dispatch.

That crunch has also meant that Coquitlam, like many municipalities in the region, “are faced with a rising demand for funding.”

To better meet that demand, the city is set to establish a festival and events strategy that will: “clarify the City’s role in investing in and supporting events, ensuring they are well-resourced and aligned with our goals to maximize their economic, cultural and social benefits over the longer term,” Kalnins stated.

The strategy is expected to be complete by the spring of 2026.

The fest’s difficulties in Coquitlam date back to at least 2022, when Chisholm told city council that it’s a strain to budget a festival when Coquitlam’s contribution is a: “question mark.”

“The idea of a grand street parade is in limbo, as is the whole future of ScotFestBC in Coquitlam,” he said in 2022.