Yesterday was a beautiful day for the Lilac Festival. Just nice enough to get good and sunburned but not hot enough for sunstroke. As I meandered through the throngs of families, dogs, birds, snakes and drunkards along fourth street I couldn't help thinking how much organizers were paying to put on this wonderful event for us (see my recent article).

Then, today I ran across some pictures from Pedestrian Sundays in Toronto (see some photos), a similar event that closes streets around Kensington Market and other communities so pedestrians can enjoy music, shops and general fun in the streets. I decided to phone them up and find out if they pay less than the $50,000 the Lilac Festival is paying in city fees.

What I found out is shocking really.

According to organizer Shamez Amlani, Pedestrian Sundays pays only $400 for road closures, insurance and city permits. No, I didn't forget two zeros. Not even one zero.

Four hundred dollars.

And they get reimbursed by the City of Toronto for the entire amount.

Pedestrian Sundays are also required to have less police than comparable festivals in Calgary. Way less. In fact, they aren't required to have ANY pay-duties in attendance for an event that attracts upwards of 50,000 people. Now I know that the City of Calgary has eased up on the requirement of 1 officer per 1000 people but there were a LOT of police wandering around at Lilac Fest. Not to mention the two monolithic police motorhomes parked across from Ducky's that were likely larger than my apartment. I guess Torontonians are better behaved than us.

Not that Amlani doesn't have his quibbles with the City of Toronto. He says they have not yet reimbursed him for last year's festival costs, and he complains about the bureaucracy that is the City of Toronto. The city wasn't going to issue them a permit this year until Amlani took the matter to his councillor and eventually to the mayor. He also complains about insurance costs, saying "Insurance is like the emperor's new clothes, it's invisible but it costs."

He wants Toronto to support these kind of events the way cities in Europe do, saying the cost to the city of closing roads for these events is minimal compared to the costs the city incurs to have people driving on the roads, such as maintenance, meter maids, traffic police etc.. "This isn't the way it happens in so many other civilized places in the world," he says.

I guess everyone has their issues. Calgary just has expensive ones.