Burgess to lead festival revival

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This article was published 10/04/2023 (1251 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former Brandon mayor Dave Burgess is excited to take part in his first meeting as the new chair of the Westman Multicultural Festival.

Talking to the Sun over the weekend, the 63-year-old Realtor — who was elected to the leadership role earlier this year — said he is looking forward to getting this community event back on track after it was put on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Burgess’ enthusiasm for this new role is also being fuelled by his history with the Westman Multicultural Festival, having overseen its creation during his eight-year tenure as the mayor of Brandon (2002-2010).

From his recollection, Burgess traces the origin of this event back to a pivotal lunch in the fall of 2003 that was attended by himself, city manager Glen Laubenstein and then lieutenant-governor Peter Liba.

“We were throwing around different ideas of what would be a great way to try and integrate all of the different nationalities that were new to Brandon and just give them something more to celebrate,” he said.

“So from that October lunch and getting together with staff to get it going, it was launched and started in February 2004.”

Originally beginning its life as the “Lieutenant Governor’s Winter Festival,” Burgess recalls how the initial iteration of this multicultural event featured seven pavilions that managed to attract roughly 7,000 visitors in its first year.

However, word of this new celebration quickly spread throughout Westman, resulting in a spike of interest that allowed the event to flourish throughout the rest of Burgess’ run as mayor.

“It became quite an event in an ‘off’ time of the year, which was what we were aiming for,” he said. “February was kind of lacklustre as far as how many events were going on. So we had a lot of people from all the different areas around Brandon coming in on buses, coming in as groups, and that was really nice.”

Outside of presiding over this multicultural festival as a ceremonial official, Burgess remembers just enjoying the collection of diverse food, music and entertainment as an attendee, with the First Nations pavilion in 2005 being a particular highlight.

“My wife and I were just dating at the time and that was one of the most fun events we had together,” he said. “So that probably stands out the most. We got up and did the [round] dance together.”

After losing the mayorship to Shari Decter-Hirst in 2010, Burgess moved out of Westman to live in Winkler and then Wetaskiwin, Alta., where he served as city manager for both municipalities.

During this period, Brandon’s multicultural festival underwent a major organizational revamp in 2015-16, parting ways with the title sponsor and dropping the “Lieutenant Governor” moniker in the process.

By the time Burgess returned to Brandon in late 2019, the now “Westman Multicultural Festival” was still in good shape, with organizers having cultivated 11 pavilions featuring groups representing El Salvador, England, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Métis, Mexico, Philippines, Scotland and Ukraine.

While the 2020 festival went ahead as planned in January, COVID cases continued to climb throughout February and March, resulting in a global shutdown that made planning large in-person events virtually impossible for the rest of the year.

Even though COVID guidelines were loosened throughout 2021 and 2022, the organizational infrastructure behind the Westman Multicultural Festival was still in a liminal state, although the event’s executive started to plan for a big return last fall.

“We had a board meeting in September, where we came to the realization that most of our cultural organizations had not disbanded, but also not gotten together in a long time,” festival secretary Gautam Srivastava told the Sun in November 2022. “They started meeting again last summer.”

Because of this sustained interest in bringing different cultural groups together, Srivastava and his fellow organizers decided to cook up a free outdoor festival for this summer, with the intention of returning to the usual winter festivities in 2024.

Outside of serving as a reintroduction to the Westman Multicultural Festival in general, Srivastava wants to use this new summer event — which is scheduled to take place July 28-29 at the Riverbank Discovery Centre — as a platform to bring new people into the fold.

“We have a good stranglehold on our 11 pavilion groups,” he said this past weekend.

“What we’re kind of lacking, I feel, is connections to the smaller groups, the groups who didn’t necessarily have a pavilion in the past and, since the last festival, may have increased in numbers.”

Right now, the Westman Multicultural Festival board is ramping up its attempts to reach these underrepresented communities, posting notices at local businesses and on social media sites to cast as wide a net as possible.

In fact, part of the reason why the board sought out Burgess as its new chair was because of the community connections he has built up as a mayor, city councillor, business owner and now a Realtor for Royal LePage.

With his first official meeting as chair scheduled to take place tomorrow, Burgess just hopes that his past experience with the Westman Multicultural Festival will come in handy and ensure that this new summer gathering will herald the return of this local event for decades to come.

“It’s still just as important to celebrate all the different nationalities and cultures now just like it was back in 2004,” he said.

“So I’m happy to be there, to take part and help in whatever way I can.”

Anyone looking to take part in the upcoming Westman Multicultural Festival summer event is encouraged to contact Srivastava by calling 250-882-5516 or sending an email to srivastavag@brandonu.ca.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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