Canmore Business and Tourism has sold its signature event, Canmore Uncorked, to the organization’s own former CEO Andrew Nickerson.
But in selling the asset to a former staff member, CBT board members Sean Meggs and Don Blackett said they realized there may be concerns around the process and both said it was critical for the board to ensure the request for proposal was done right.
“We realized the optics of this,” Meggs said. “We went over it as a board and agonized about this decision.”
But even with a lot of initial interest in the award-winning culinary food festival, Meggs said only two bids were submitted for the board to consider when deciding the future of the event.
He said interest in owning the festival may have been affected by the fact that Uncorked has lost money in its first three years of being held, with the 2016 edition closing out $80,000 in the hole.
“Once people found out the financial reality they were dealing with, they lost interest,” he said. “It is a daunting task to take on … and the two proposals were very different.”
Two factors were important to the board when considering Nickerson’s proposal; it had strong support from the restaurant sector and Nickerson stopped being an employee of CBT as of July 31.
Nickerson said in an interview with the Outlook he feels the process was handled appropriately and he has had no involvement with CBT since his position was terminated – a result of the organization choosing to stop operating due to sustainable funding issues.
“I am confident there was no conflict of interest whatsoever,” he said.
The opportunity to own Uncorked Experiences and buy the award-winning event was an attractive one for Nickerson, who said he “loves” the event and has “poured my heart, soul and passion into it.”
Part of the proposal put forward by Nickerson were 18 letters of support from local restaurant owners. With strong industry support, a thorough understanding of the event’s financial situation and how it has evolved over the past three years, Meggs and Blackett said the board was confident his represented the best proposal submitted.
They said Canmore Business and Tourism considered itself an incubator for Uncorked and the intention was always to sell the event as an asset once it had been developed.
“We were more than aware of the potential for conflict,” Blackett said of the potential sale of Uncorked and interest in purchasing it by Nickerson.
But other events intervened, with CBT losing its primary source of destination marketing funding from a group of local hotels that had voluntarily been charging three per cent on room nights to guests. Those funds represented $7 million over eight years, but participation began to erode and eventually saw the Destination Marketing Fund, as the group was known, fold.
Facing a $1.5 million shortfall in funding, CBT announced in July it would cease operating as the Canmore destination marketing organization.
The decision to sell Uncorked was one of the results of CBT making that decision and now with a new owner selected, Meggs and Blackett say they are confident it will continue into the future successfully.
Nickerson said Uncorked was successful because it had a bold vision – to create a nationally renowned festival that showcases the food and restaurant industry of Canmore – something he said will continue.
“I want to be Canada’s premiere food festival, bar none,” he said, “and I am going to do whatever it takes to do that.”
Having never been run as a profit making endeavour but an investment into the food industry to support economic development of that sector, Nickerson acknowledged he has a challenge ahead of him.
“I am not underestimating the challenge I have moving forward to make this successful,” he said.
