Prince George will send an expression of interest to the province for potentially hosting FIFA World Cup watch parties next summer.
At a meeting last month, City Councillors Ron Polillo and Cori Ramsay put forward a notice of motion, directing staff to plan and execute watch parties to be held at Canada Games Plaza.
At that meeting, Council decided to hold off on voting, as there was a session on hosting the watch parties held at the Union of BC Municipalities convention.
At last night’s (Monday) meeting, Council was presented with a report summarizing what staff learned during the session, as well as outlining next steps if Council wished to move ahead.
According to the report, there are different requirements for different types of watch parties:
Non-commercial: No FIFA licence or fee required:
- Regular business operations such as bars showing matches as part of normal service
- Small community events under 1,000 people
- No ticket sales or sponsors
Special Non-Commercial: FIFA licence and fee required:
- Large free events for more than 1,000 people
- Hosted by public institutions (e.g. municipalities)
- No ticket sales or sponsors
Commercial: FIFA license (and fee) required, as well as FIFA approval for sponsorships
- Any event with ticket sales, sponsorship or commercial promotion
- Includes paid entry, branded activations, or any activity designed for commercial gain.
“The one piece of good news was that there’s different levels,” said Polillo.
“When myself, and Councillor Ramsay came up with this motion, I think, at least for me, aligned for my vision of 1,000 or less, so with that 1,000 or less, that means we don’t have to go through the FIFA approval process, along with that, we don’t have to go through the buying rights process.”
Polillo also noted the province could be giving funding for watch parties, but it’s not guaranteed.
He moved staff go ahead with submitting an expression of interest to the province.
“In that process they will have to do some planning of the event and costs,” Polillo said.
“That would be submitted to the province and then that would come back to us for final approval to move ahead if we wanted to do it or not.”
Ramsay added an expression of interest is just that, and isn’t committing the city to anything.
“It’s getting more information and seeing if we’re eligible for some funding,” she said.
“There’s potential for us to find some funding partners on this to reduce costs and provide a free event for the community next summer.”
Director of Civic Facilities and Events Andy Beesley noted they wouldn’t be able to accept “sponsorships” as a non-commercial event, but they would be able accept donations.
Councillor Kyle Sampson said his opinion hadn’t changed that this could be better served by the private sector.
“I think what I would prefer to see is how can the City can support something like this happening, if there was a group or organization that was saying we want to do this, is there a way that, this is a non-profit, no sponsorship situation, is there a way that the City could allow us to use the property, and then we would maybe be talking about waiving fees, that would be a different case for me,” he said.
“It’s not that I don’t support the general idea, I’m just not sure if the vehicle to get us there is quite the one I’m ready to jump in on.”
Council voted to direct administration to submit an expression of the interest to the province.
A staff report will come back at a later date, at which time Council will decide if they want to move ahead with the watch parties or not.
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