22 - Wednesday, April 24, 1991 - North Shore News

NEWS photo Cindy Ge 2dman

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER for the Vancouver Children’s Festival,
Emie Fiadell is confident the local festival will overcome its
current financial woes.

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ORE AND more, festivals are becoming an in-
tegral part of Vancouver's cultural life.

Of all the ones Ecan
think of (won't bother to list
them), the Vancouver Children’s
Festival (this year, May 13-20) has
always struck me as the city’s
principal festival. Maybe because
it was a first in so many areas.

Other cities had children’s festi-
vals too, but Vancouver's was a
model of consistency: it became
an annual event that happened in
the same spot every year, with the
exception of 1979 when a civic
strike forced it from Vanier Park to
Jericho Beach.

It didn’t see itself as merely a
way of keeping bored kids busy in
the summer — that was obvious
in its thoughtful programming.
And it didn’t just throw entertain-
ment together haphazardly.

“We opened up to the entire
world. So many other cities
followed us. Now there are
children’s festivals all over Canada
and the U.S.."' says its founding
director and executive Producer.

BODY +;
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149°

‘COKE e. & HOT DOG 4
LOTS OF SURPRIZES!!

Ernie Fladell.

This year the Vancouver
Children’s Festival is experiencing
another first, but to a kid, it’s more
of a scuffed knee than a bright
balloon. That's because far the
first ime in 14 debt-free years it is
facing a $40,000 to $60,000 short-
tall.

Fladell, a Brooklyn native who
founded the festival in 1978, says
it’s due to a number of things,
namely the GST, less support from
schools who have had their tield
trip budgets cut back, and the
failure of government tunding to
keep up with growing costs.

According to Fladell, the festival
hes made substantial cuts in order
to survive, eliminating what it
considers to be luxury programs
and reducing staff. Each of the
remaining staff will take a month
holiday this year without pay. He
is confident that the deficit will be
wiped at the end of two years.

The Children’s Festival is, by all

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AND LOTS, LOTS MORE!

nurses kids’ festival

Evelyn Jacob
SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

rights, Fladell’s baby. During the
latter part of his term as cultural
social planner for the City of Van-
couver, Fladell saw the need for a
children’s festival, and in 1978 he
organized the first one.

That same year he established
Vancouver's first Folk Festival in
Stanley Park (He also set up the
Vancouver Heritage Festival), and
turned it over to Gary Christall two
years later, but he couldn’t part
with the Chiidren’s Festival.

"| hung on to it,” he says,

See Popular page 23

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Patio Seating

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