Folklorama 2022 - Update

 Folklorama 2022 - Update 

McConnell Irish Dance has been a member of Folklorama from the festival beginnings in 1974.  Sam McConnell (Shayleen's grandfather) was one of the founding members of Folklorama and our school has performed at the Irish Pavilion, Emerald Isle Pavilion, Isle of the Shamrock Pavilion, and the United Kingdom Pavilion. 

Since 2014, our Student's Association (MSDSA) has sponsored the United Kingdom Pavilion, coordinated by Shayleen McConnell and run with the help of many volunteers from our dancers parents, family members, and community.  The planning, organising, and running of a Folklorama pavilion is a year-round project which requires a great deal of work on the part of the organisational team of 8 - 12 chair volunteers.  In many cases, these individuals take time off work and plan their holidays around the Folklorama as their volunteer efforts become a full time job during the 2 - 4 weeks surrounding the festival.  Although it' a "labour of love", it requires a massive amount of time, effort, and dedication.

Folklorama is planning for a return to an in-person festival for August 2022.  Although this is a hopeful sign of a return to regular events, there is still much uncertainty on how pavilions will mange within the pandemic environment.  Folklorama suggests pavilions prepare for reduced admissions due to hesitancy for general public to attend large scale events, higher costs for supplies, enhanced regulations for food & beverage service, and added costs for health and safety measures related to covid-19.

In a normal year, sponsorship of a Folklorama requires a minimum operating budget of $25,000 for upfront costs such as venue rental, food & beverage purchases, equipment rentals, entertainment, staging, lights, technical services, and much more!  Revenues from pavilion food, beverage sales help offset costs, but pavilions receive less than 40% revenue from pavilion admissions as the remainder goes back to Folklorama Inc.  Sponsorship of a pavilion must be taken seriously as the financial risk falls on the shoulders of the sponsoring organisation and board of directors.

While we very much wish to see a return to regular events such as Folklorama, we have serious reservations on the economic feasibility for sponsorship of a pavilion in the 2022 festival.  Without a clear plan from Folklorama to ease the burden for community run pavilions, we do not feel comfortable taking the risk with the hard earned fundraising efforts of our dance community. 

With this in mind, we feel the best decision for our community is to take the 2022 festival off and allow the pandemic to fully wind down before we consider the return to pavilion sponsorship.  There are other long term pavilions who have also decided not to enter the 2022 festival for similar reasons.

In the fall of 2021, we put out a survey to our dance family and Folklorama volunteers to see how many of you were interested in continuing with sponsorship of a pavilion and the response was positive from many of you.  We were very pleased to hear Folklorama is an important event you look forward to and delighted you were willing to give up your time during the summer to volunteer or perform in the festival.

While we understand another year without Folklorama may come as a disappointment to some, we feel it is the most responsible decision we can make at this time.  We also understand many of you plan your summer vacations around the festival dates and we wanted to let our Folklorama participants know well in advance.

This summer we will plan for some fun cultural events for our all dancers, including summer classes, Irish dance camps, and performance opportunities for all who would like to be involved.

Thank you,

McConnell Irish Dance