While Toronto prepares for FIFA World Cup this summer, the city is also getting ready for its usual Pride month festivities in June.
But for smaller queer event organizers, the global tournament is reshaping — and in some cases sidelining — their usual programming.
Phil Villeneuve, co-owner of Yohomo, an online queer event page, told CBC Toronto the company has cancelled all of its major Pride events this year.
“We’ve just kind of given everything over to FIFA,” he said. “We weren’t prepared for how it was going to shake things up and disrupt how we were throwing events in Toronto this summer.”
For several years now, Yohomo has held its flagship party, Love on Top, on the Saturday of the Pride festival weekend at the Bentway — an outdoor venue located under the Gardiner Expressway near Fort York. But this year, the event space is being used as as a host site for Toronto’s FIFA Fan Festival from June 11 to July 19.
Yohomo has held its flagship party, Love on Top, at the Bentway for the past three years. This year, the outdoor event space is being used for FIFA Fan Fest during the World Cup. (@weareyohomo/Instagram)
Villeneuve takes no issue with the venue for hosting FIFA, but after months of searching for an alternative location, Yohomo’s leadership decided to cancel the event altogether.
“We just didn’t see this party happening anywhere else in the city,” he said.
Beyond venue shortages, Villeneuve said the decision to cancel all Yohomo events came down to increased production costs during the World Cup period, including hotel rooms for performers and the cost of things like security, fencing and portable washrooms.
Smaller Pride events cancelled or scaled back
Organizers for the Toronto Queer Market (TQM) have faced similar difficulties while planning ahead for Pride month.
While the main market is typically held at Barbara Hall Park on Church Street in the summer months, founder Ashley Champion said she’s had to make alternative arrangements for her annual Pride pop-up event held at Stackt Market at Bathurst and Front Streets.
“Usually that takes place mid- to late-June,” she told CBC Toronto. “[This year] we’re doing it at the beginning of June, the weekend before FIFA.”
After a discussion with Stackt Market’s management, Champion agreed the venue would likely be too busy due to its proximity to FIFA programming to host around 40 vendors on the same weekend as years past.
Both Champion and Villeneuve feel the city’s focus on the World Cup has come at the expense of smaller, homegrown businesses.
“I think we just don’t have the infrastructure in Toronto to host huge vents very well. And I think it does have an impact,” Champion said.
In a statement provided to CBC Toronto, Pat Tobin, the City of Toronto’s manager of economic development and culture, wrote: “We understand that some organizers are facing higher costs and more competition for space during a busy summer.”
“The City of Toronto is working with organizers where possible and continues to provide funding and support to help festivals run … Our goal is to make sure festivals, including Pride-related events, can still take place,” Tobin said in the statement.
Meanwhile, Pride Toronto’s executive director, Kojo Modeste, is assuring the public the World Cup won’t have any major impacts on the official festival’s planned programming.
“We have been given the assurance by the city that we will have all of the resources that we have had in the past,” Modeste told CBC Toronto.
Conversations with the city have been ongoing since Toronto’s FIFA games were first announced, Modeste said.
In particular, concerns that police, paramedics and firefighters could be stretched thin during that period were addressed, with the city assuring Pride Toronto there will be enough emergency personnel to go around, Modeste said.
Pride Toronto will host events throughout the month of June, culminating in the weekend festival from June 25 to 28 — all of which is expected to run smoothly alongside World Cup festivities, according to Modeste.