By Chad Klassen

Smoke forces more event cancellations, planners starting to rethink scheduling

Aug 23, 2018 | 3:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The dreaded smoke returned to the city on Thursday, bringing with it a gloomy feel and the cancellation of another event, the Moonlight Movie Night planned for Friday night at Riverside Park. 

“It was really tough. There’s a lot of work that goes into planning an event like this,” said CMHA’s facilities and operations manager Shelley Trudeau. “It’s very well-received in the community, there’s a lot of people that really enjoy coming out. I think because of the kind of summer we’ve had, a lot of people were really looking forward to coming out and spending a nice evening out.”

With last year’s report entitled “Address The New Normal: 21st Century Disaster Management in British Columbia,” the smoke could be here to stay and have a major impact on any outdoor events in the future. 

“The fires are going to continue, I think, for the forseeable future throughout the summer until we burn off a lot of our forest management practices from the last 20-30 years,” said executive director of the North Shore Business Improvement Association Jeremy Heighton, adding it will come with more smoke. “Whether you want to call this the new norm or not the new norm, this is the reality for at least the next five years, maybe seven, and we’re really going to have to think about what we do and how we do it as a community.”

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The NSBIA has learned its lesson after having to postpone Overlanders Day last Sunday due to heavy smoke. It’s been scheduled to Sept. 23 at Brock Park, but will be held in the third week of July starting next year. 

The association feels its experience with Overlanders Day will impact other outdoor summer events moving forward.

“Typically events have been mostly summer-based here in Kamloops, but now we’re starting to look at spring and fall because there’s a greater window for those things,” noted Heighton. “There are some things that have to be held outside. If we’re doing a bouncy castle, you have a height restriction, so you’re going to have to go outside with those things. It may mean rethinking some events moving forward. It may mean dropping some events from where they regularly are and putting them in a whole different time of the year and building something else from them.”

Kamloops Arts Council executive director Kathy Sinclair has the Children’s Arts Festival to think about, set to take place Sept. 14-15, hoping the smoke is gone by then. 

“It’s a huge challenge,” said Sinclair in regards to outdoor event planning. “Outdoor event planners always have to worry aobut the elements. This year we had a lot of rain at Art in the Park on Canada Day, for example. When you throw the smoke element into it, and the human health factor and safety, especially for little ones and seniors, that’s when things get a lot more complicated.”

The arts council met immediately upon learning of the Overlanders Day cancellation. There are alternate plans to stage activities indoors if the smoke remains. 

But the arts council would prefer to stay outdoors, not only for the nice weather but also for exposure. 

“We want to be out and about, and we don’t want to give up our outdoor programming. We really want to make sure it happens and do it in a way that’s safe,” noted Sinclair. “Our Rivertown Players have been performing throughout the parks around Kamloops all summer as well, but they’ve also had to reschedule quite a few of their performances for that reason.”

Meantime, CMHA says it will be out up to $5,000 with the cancellation of the Moonlight Movie Night.