It’s a sad day for Victoria’s beer scene, as the Victoria Beer Society (VBS) board of directors has announced the cancellation of this year’s Langford Beer Festival and the Great Canadian Beer Festival in Victoria.
“Today, the challenges facing events and the craft beer industry as a whole are no secret. Like many of our partners, we’ve faced rising costs, increased competition and other challenges,” the VBS board said in a press release issued May 1.
“After much deliberation, we’ve made the difficult decision to pause the Langford Beer Festival and the Great Canadian Beer Festival in 2025. Instead, we’re focusing our efforts on crafting a financially sustainable path forward for these two flagship events in the future.”
VBS board member Joe Wiebe explained that despite last year's lively festivals, attendance has been quietly seeing a downturn since the COVID-19 pandemic. With a large expense necessary to host the events, VBS was not confident this year's editions would see the turnout necessary to justify their cost.
"Festivals have become more difficult to run, in light of the economics and the fact that people aren't spending as much money on attending events," said Wiebe, who explained that it was also becoming more difficult to attract breweries.
"There used to be far more breweries interested in our events than we could even accommodate so it was easy to fill all the spots. Whereas now, last year for instance, we weren't even able to get as many breweries to participate at the Great Canadian Beer Festival as we had room for."
The news comes after VBS celebrated the 10th edition of Victoria Beer Week and the 30th anniversary of the Great Canadian Beer Festival just last year. The VBS team expressed deep thanks to supporters over the years who helped make the festivals a success.
“These achievements were only possible thanks to the dedication of our small team, the countless hours of community volunteers, and the unwavering support of all the breweries and cideries who partnered with us,” the VBS said. “We look forward to celebrating craft beer culture together with you again in the future.”
While VBS doesn't have much on the agenda for this upcoming summer, it still hopes to participate in local events through its beer truck.
"We haven't confirmed that yet. But, hopefully, that will be a viable thing to do, getting it involved."
Despite this year's pause, there remains some hope among the board that the festivals can return in the future.
"We are basically looking at how we can make a plan for the future and who will take that on and what will have to happen to make us feel more confident so that we can do it again. We will be talking to our partners in the city and to Tourism Victoria to see if there are any ways we can get some help moving forward," said Wiebe.
"The Great Canadian Beer Festival has a long legacy of 30 years, and Langford was a newer event, but we definitely thought it was a great event, and it was very popular. So I think cautiously optimistic that we can bring them back next year would be a good way to put it."
