The City of Burlington has set aside $160,000 for a FIFA Caravan Event. In addition to the $160,000, a part-time staff member will be hired to coordinate the event with FIFA, bringing the total to approximately $200,000.
The city will use an expected surplus from the Cultural Initiatives Reserve Fund. The money in the reserve fund is from “2025 retained savings”. In other words, this is taxpayers’ money that wasn’t spent in 2025. One option is to use the funds to reduce the 2026 tax increase. Another option is to fund the FIFA Caravan event.
Focus Burlington is surveying the community on this issue, the survey is at the bottom of this post.
What are the ways to participate in FIFA 2026?
Attending a game is at the top of the list. Toronto will host five group-stage games and one knockout-stage game, for a total of six matches. A ticket for the June 23, 2026, Croatia versus Panama match, at BMO Field, starts at $2,600.00 Canadian Dollars.
Toronto is hosting a fan festival from June 11th to July 19th at Fort York. Admission is free, and you’ll be able to watch games live on a large screen. There will also be food and live entertainment between games. Fort York is a twenty-minute walk from the Exhibition Go Station.
Burlington’s FIFA Caravan Event is a one-day event, date and format to be determined. The caravan is likely to include large screen(s) allowing fans to watch a game, along with food trucks and live music. The event is expected to be held at Spencer Smith Park.
How can you watch the games from home?
TSN will carry all the games.
CTV will show some games.
FIFA will live-stream selected games.
BBC and ITV will be broadcasting games in English. A VPN may be required.
More about the caravan.
FIFA provides production, branding, programming, and operations support. The city’s role is site services, permitting, safety, sanitation, and local programming.
Compared with previous Sound of Music events, the city charged the festival close to $100,000 for the use of Spencer Smith, permitting, safety, and sanitation.
Vancouver and Toronto are hosting multi-day fan festival events. To date, only two Canadian municipalities have publicly expressed interest in being a stop for the FIFA Caravan: Burlington, estimating costs at over $200,000 and Chatham-Kent, estimating costs at $75,000.
What did residents have to say in our survey?
The survey is still open. You can fill it out here: https://forms.gle/jryDQFrAwCHCWfCy7
What do you think?
Discover more from Focus Burlington
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Unbelievable!!!!!!!!! Let’s feed and house those in Burlington, who have neither of these.