The next Burlington City Council meeting is on October 6, 2025. Council is voting to remove all funding from the Sound of Music Festival.
The meeting agenda item states:
“Decline Burlington’s Sound of Music Festival Inc.’s 2026 funding request and discontinue municipal financial support due to ongoing financial instability and non-compliance with Agreements conditions; and Approve the reallocation of $150,000—originally designated for Sound of Music in the 2026 Operating Budget—to the Community Investment Fund.”
On August 16th, I enjoyed some live music at the Dundas Cactus Festival. FiddleStix and Freedom Train were fantastic. The Cactus Festival is celebrating 50 years of success.
Why is one free local festival growing and thriving, while another, the Sound of Music Festival (SOM), is struggling?
City of Hamilton documents show that the total budget for the Cactus Festival is $302,359.
SOM doesn’t make a budget available to the public. Information provided to council on May 12th states:
“Incoming cash at the festival is expected to be: $330k Food and Bev, Merchandise $20k, 50/50of 35k, Donors $200k, and post-festival, we are expecting to see the remaining $75k from last year’s grant that was delayed. Close to the 600K mark.”
The numbers above add up to $660,000. Don Sheppard estimated expenses at $450,000 to $500,000 for the 2025 Sound of Music Festival.
SOM is a much larger and more expensive festival when compared to the Cactus Festival.
What are the factors in running a festival?
Municipal Funding
- Sound of Music – $150,000 grant and $225,000 loan
- Burlington and Halton charge the Sound of Music Festival for many things, including parking in the multi-level garage, paramedics, and police. These charges amount to around $95,000, making the true value of the grant $55,000.
Grants Ontario
Federal Heritage Fund
- $50,000 to SOM. We could not find a grant for the Cactus Festival.
Vendors, Vendors and more Vendors
The Cactus Festival has a large number of vendors, lining both sides of King St. Vendor fees average about $500 per vendor and may total to $50,000.
Back in 2024 we ran a quick community survey on The Sound of Music Festival. The results showed that we need to learn to design better surveys, but also that the majority of respondents want SOM to continue in some form.
Option 1 – The Sound of Music Board request
– forgive $95k of money owed by Sound of Music to the city
– arrange payment terms for another $125K
– provide a grant of $150K for the 2025 event
Option 2 – NO FESTIVAL IN 2025
– forgive the $95K and $125K
– no grant for 2025
Option 3 – Scaled down Sound of Music for 2025
The Cactus Festival uses local talent and two stages. Is this a model that would work in Burlington?
The Sound of Music Festival started in 1979, initially as a marching band parade, humble beginnings leading to an extravagant ending – is there some middle ground?
Should there be a $5 entry fee for the Sound of Music Festival? If council passes the recommendation to pull funding, we’ll never know.
Tired of higher taxes and fewer services? Complete our quick budget survey here: https://www.focusburlington.ca/2026-budget-survey/
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I’m the old dog who attended the SOM and ribfest every year. Once the city started charging and the beer prices started going through the roof, let some the cost of food, I just stopped going. I do suggest option 3. My son was eight some 25 years ago and attended Melody man studios on Harvester. This was his first real audience and he loved it. Home grown entertainment. Bands and groups from around southern Ontario and regardless of being country. rock, east coast or whatever your fancy, it was free and the whole family was able to attend. Seems we forgot that as we get older… two cents from the old dog..
People attend the SOM for A-list headliners.
Burlington is too congested and it’s too much of a hassle to attend, too crowded.