Salmon Festival organizers got a nice surprise recently.
TSN crews will return to Campbell River sooner than expected to film the festival’s Logger Sports competition.
While it was welcome news, it was also unexpected.
“Since we were filmed in 2011 and 2012, we did not expect another filming opportunity from them this soon, as their normal cycle is, film two consecutive years then film other competitions for three or four years before returning,” wrote organizers Philip Hicks, Dave MacLeod, and Jim Lilburn. “Given this, we did not budget for the required filming crew costs that the festival must cover to be filmed.”
Those costs include return airfare from Toronto to Campbell River, local transportation and accommodation. The festival already had donations totalling $3,600 but it wasn’t enough to cover the $5,000 flight from Toronto to Vancouver and return.
That opened the door for the city to step in.
Council, at its meeting June 10, decided to give the festival the remaining $5,000 it was looking for.
Coun. Andy Adams said the money is more than worth the exposure the city will get in return.
Each of the three episodes will air this fall, once on TSN and twice on TSN2, and then again in the spring of 2015, again once on TSN and twice on TSN2.