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Edmonton Branding and Tourism strategy

tkoe_ said:
I've experienced this as well, particularly from Calgarians and it is very bizarre. You don't have to want to move to Edmonton, but I can't imagine someone from Toronto saying that Montreal is so dangerous and rundown that they would never visit. I mean, if you want to go to Stampede every year fill your boots, but doesn't that get a bit boring after awhile? Isn't there any sense of discovery in doing something new?
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Its part of the historical rivalry some there still have, or I would call it historical resentment, because Edmonton which was much smaller than Calgary at the time was chosen as the provincial capital (which IMO was a good choice as we are more centrally located in the province). There are some there who will miss no opportunity to disparage Edmonton to others. While it is probably fair to say the antipathy goes both ways, Edmontonians do not generally seem as vocal about it.
 
BrettB said:
Just look at how hard is is to rejuvenate the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver - an area with much higher real estate prices and they still can't breathe life into large parts of the community.
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When you look at the amount of vacant, developable, and affordable land in and around downtown Edmonton, Vancouver’s Downtown East Side isn’ta really good comparable except for people who like to excuse things by saying “well, it could be worse”…
 
kcantor said:
It’s hard to have parades when you don’t have any streets capable of holding a parade…
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Well they haven't messed up Whyte Ave yet, used to have a nice Canada Day parade and Pride for a while there too.

I know they used to have K Days on 102 Ave and that worked well, but after Jasper Ave worked fine for K Days and still does one of the remaining parades we do have.
 
That was one of the remaining parades I was referring to, although not sure if there are any others.
 
kcantor said:
It’s hard to have parades when you don’t have any streets capable of holding a parade…
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We have no shortage of overly wide stroads and our core actually remains dominated by them.

The big barrier to parades is actually the significant expense and the huge amount of organization and volunteer time that goes into them vs the limited payoff that actually comes from them. This is why parades have been in decline pretty much everywhere, and the exceptions are things like Stampede where the parade is able to sell TV rights. Edmonton has never had a parade that can pull in those sorts of revenues.
 
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The city and others seem to spend a great deal of time and money encouraging various events to come to the city, especially downtown, but parades? No.
 
David A said:
The city and others seem to spend a great deal of time and money encouraging various events to come to the city, especially downtown, but parades? No.
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It perhaps seems that way, but it isn't actually the case. Like there's grants that festival organizers can apply for (and you can even use them for parades), but the City isn't the one doing the leg work to make all of our events happen. That's mostly volunteers.
 
Maybe the grant structure which seems more designed for festivals is part of the reason. We may need something better or different to encourage a variety of activities.

I feel city restrictions and costs around parades may also be part of the problem too. I get the sense it was easier and less expensive in the past to hold parades.
 
David A said:
Maybe the grant structure which seems more designed for festivals is part of the reason. We may need something better or different to encourage a variety of activities.

I feel city restrictions and costs around parades may also be part of the problem too. I get the sense it was easier and less expensive in the past to hold parades.
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No, the grant structure doesn't: it's the nature of parades that disincentivizes parades. They are extremely labour intensive to put on relative to the return the organization putting them on actually gets, unless they have something like TV rights they can sell (eg Stampede).

It's also a pretty common thing nowadays in cities all over to have trouble finding participants interested in taking part in parades, unless they have a base that is intensely interested in making a statement to the community. The last K-Days parade, for instance, was very heavily first responders and military, and was decidedly short on community groups. They're very often drawing lower attendance, because for a lot of folks just sitting and watching a parade unless there's something spectacular about it just isn't fun. It's one of those things whose demographic appeal is largely children and old people, with the former perhaps having limits as to how long they'll sit still for one.
 
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