BC Association of Performing Arts Festivals, 1999
Strategic planning


Through four decades the BC Association of Performing Arts Festivals had produced an annual provincial festival featuring young performers in music, dance and speech arts who earned the right to participate at the provincial level by virtue of their success in 31 local and regional festivals. In the 80s, the Association integrated its festival with the BC Festival of the Arts, an initiative of the Province of British Columbia to bring together a number of annual arts events under one "roof". Originally intended to be a celebration of community arts, the BC Festival of the Arts became "Canada's largest multi-discipline festival for emerging artists". This objective was quite different from that of the Association, which saw its job as helping to create experiences for young people which would result in a lifelong love of music and the arts. Tensions developed between the Association and the Festival and within the Association itself. Early in 1999 Lamont Management was engaged by the BC Association of Performing Arts Festivals to assess the Association's external and internal relationships, and to recommend how the Association should plan for its future.

Interviews were conducted in person and by telephone with the Association's funders, partners and members. It became clear that no one really understood the impact the establishment of the government's BC Festival of the Arts had on the independent festivals, like the one produced by the Association, which preceded it. While members of the Association were uncomfortable with the direction being taken by the BC Festival of the Arts, they were reluctant to be critical, as the BC Festival had become the Association's principal source of funding. As a result, disagreements were focused inwards, to the detriment of relationships within the Association.

It was clear that the most effective way for the Association to develop a plan for the future would be to get the members physically together to do so as a group. Geographic distance and the small budget for the project made this impossible. Instead, a report which made the historical basis of the Association's problems clear to all members was prepared and presented verbally at the Association's semi-annual meeting during the 1999 Festival. The principal recommendation, that the Association use the time in the fall of 1999 allotted for its Annual General Meeting to conduct sessions with a professional facilitator at which members could build a plan for the future, was accepted. The Association engaged Knowlan Consulting Group to facilitate a three-day strategic planning session at which the Association produced a plan which has the support of all of its members.