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Community festival and event grant

Community event grants provide seed funding for new or up-and-coming festivals or events that demonstrate goals to enhance arts, culture, heritage and alignment with the Social Policy.

The City understands that festivals and events are vital to advancing the quality of life for all citizens in Airdrie and these events have a positive effect on social well-being. Council’s strategic vision is to enhance the unique arts, culture and recreational aspects of Airdrie and to demonstrate the value our City places on diversity, inclusion and connectedness.

Event grant application process

Community festival and event grants are intended to support the operations of festival and event producing organizations and can be directed to support the costs of:

  • General operations and administration;
  • Festival and event production (insurance, marketing, etc.); and/or
  • Festival and event programming

Organizations can apply once per year to the program stream they are eligible for:

  1. First time festivals and events: Grant requests for up to $2500 to support organizers bringing new (first year) events to Airdrie that are expected to draw more than 200 attendees. City of Airdrie gift-in-kind contributions such as facility fee waivers will be considered and factored in as part of the request.
  2. Up and coming festivals and events: Grant requests of up to $5,000 to support organizers for events that are in year 2 or 3 of a reoccurring festival or event with an attendance of more than 200 but less than 10,000. Up and coming events with a demonstrated attendance of more than 10,000 can be considered for up to $10,000 in grant funding. City of Airdrie gift-in-kind contributions such as facility fee waivers will be considered and factored in as part of the request.

Applications are open to organizations producing a festival or event for the citizens of Airdrie.

Apply for a community event grant

Event grant deadlines and intake periods

Applications will be accepted throughout the year and reviewed every quarter until all available grant funds for the year have been allocated.

2023 intake periods

  • Spring intake runs Jan. 1 – March 31, 2023. Funding announcements will be made on or before April 30, 2023.
  • Summer intake runs May 1 - July 1, 2023. Funding announcements will be made on or before July 31, 2023
  • Fall/Winter intake runs Sept. 1 – Nov. 30, 2023. Funding announcements will be made before the end of Dec. 2023

Applications made after Dec. 15, 2023, will be considered for 2024 community event grants.

Event grant decisions and approvals

Applications will be reviewed, assessed and grants paid out every quarter. Agreements and final reporting guidelines will be provided to applicants who receive a grant.

Grant recipients will be required to enter into a standard grant agreement with the City of Airdrie, which includes:

  • Agreement for registered not-for-profit societies; or
  • Agreement for community event organizer/group that does not have Government of Alberta society status.

Organizations receiving a grant through the community festival and event program will also be required to:

  • Acknowledge the City of Airdrie as a sponsor on their promotional materials
  • Submit a final report and/or respond to a survey upon completion of the festival or event.

Grant recipients will also be asked to submit a final report and/or respond to a survey upon completion of the festival or event to help the City of Airdrie evaluate this program.

A formal review will be completed at the end of the funding year. Process improvements will be made based on measurement, feedback, learnings, and participant reporting.

For questions or concerns, please