By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The future of the Burlington Waterfront Festival at Spencer Smith Park is in question after Burlington’s Committee of the Whole backed a review of the event and recommended that it be classified as a food truck festival.
The recommendation, which passed six to one at the Sept. 14 committee meeting, would prevent approval or renewal of the festival at Spencer Smith Park for 2027 from being finalized until the review is complete and council has considered the resulting staff report.
The move followed concerns from the Burlington Downtown Business Association (BDBA), whose executive director, Brian Dean, told committee that the July festival did not deliver the programming originally expected and instead functioned primarily as a food truck festival.
Dean told the committee that the BDBA does not want to see the Burlington Waterfront Festival renewed at the same location and in the same configuration next year.
Dean said that when BDBA members visited the festival, they did not see the live music or midway family-friendly programming they had expected.
“What we did see, in abundance, was food trucks,” Dean said.
“The organizer is RoadShow Events, and a little research made it clear that the executive director of the Canadian Food Truck Festivals Inc. is closely associated with that firm,” Dean said. “So what we contend this morning is that this applicant failed to deliver its promised programming by substantially cutting back or eliminating altogether the key features that were aligned with the priorities identified by this community in the Burlington Cultural Plan.”
Dean said that the BDBA believes that council spoke “very definitively” on this point in October 2023, when it voted to discontinue the former Burlington food truck festival after a seven-year run at Spencer Smith Park.
He said that on average, BDBA members make 50–55% of their annual sales in the “critical months” between May and October.
Dean said that a “disproportionate amount” of food trucks were set up at the festival and compared the number to that of the Lakeshore Music and Arts Festival.
Twenty-two food trucks were advertised for the three-day Burlington Waterfront Festival, which the city designated a “community event,” whereas 12 food trucks and six food trailers were present at the two-day Lakeshore Music and Arts Festival, which the city described as a “signature event” with an expected attendance of over 20,000 people.
Dean said that he and his fellow BDBA members asked most of the food truck owners at the festival where they were from and that none said Burlington.
He said that the event created a “self-contained dining destination” that provided “little to no incentive to patronize any of the 50+ brick-and-mortar restaurants on their doorstep.”
“By every objective measure, we believe that the Burlington Waterfront Festival 2026 is and was a food truck festival,” Dean said. “And as such, it should be subject to the precise motion that this council passed in October 2023. It has no place operating adjacent to a business improvement area. It should not be renewed for the 2027 season. We’re also requesting to be meaningfully engaged in a significant post-event report. Our business community has a lot to say.”
Dean said that the BDBA works well with most other events in the city, but described the Burlington Waterfront Festival as a “full and complete assault” on downtown restaurants.
“It is the most direct competition that we can imagine,” Dean said. “And it’s essentially being subsidized, if you will, by the municipality.”
Dean said that when the BDBA delegated against the Food Truck Festival in 2023, council cautioned that it was too close to when the organizers could reasonably expect their event to be renewed. They intentionally delegated closer to the end of the Burlington Waterfront Festival this time around.
“We think it is more than a reasonable amount of time,” Dean said.
Dean was joined by Steve Hewson, owner of La Creme de la Creme Creamery Inc., and Stephen Bell, owner of Pepperwood Bistro and member of the BDBA board of directors, to answer questions of council.
Hewson said that it is not a level playing field between brick-and-mortar restaurants and food trucks.
“We [local restaurants] pay the taxes, hire the locals, and purchase through local vendors,” Hewson said. “Our revenue stays in Burlington and gets spent in Burlington. The trucks are leaving with their money.”
Hewson said the weekend before the event, his creamery was up 21% year over year. The weekend afterwards it was up 29%, but the weekend of the event it was down 10%.
Dean said that although there is a role for food trucks in this community, there is also a “no-fly zone.”
Angelo Bentivegna, Ward 6 councillor, said that it’s possible that the committee and staff who approved the festival got “bamboozled.”
Dean said that the responsibility for putting the event on as advertised “rests with the event organizer, not city staff.”
Dean believes that RoadShow Events is “out of chances.”
“We’re not interested in a formulation that sees them come back,” Dean said. “We think that some deep consideration should be given to whether or not this organizer fulfilled the objectives and is a member in good standing.”
Emilie Cote, the city’s director of Recreation, Community and Culture, said that staff approve event applications “in principle.”
“Often things can change, usually not material in terms of how the event actually ends up being delivered,” Cote said. “If the event does deviate, it becomes part of our post-event debrief and conversation we have with the event organizer, in advance of the following year’s event.”
Ward 4 Councillor Shawna Stolte said that the fact that the city can’t directly intervene when an event is not shaping up to go ahead as advertised “spooks” her.
She referenced an event disguised as a documentary screening that was held by the white supremacist group Dominion Society at The Atrium Banquet and Conference Centre.
“Thankfully we’re just talking about food trucks,” Stolte said. “There were other events that were in question in Burlington earlier last month where event organizers posed as one type of event and then what actually is put on in the community was a very different type of event. I just think that the city needs to take responsibility and accountability to make sure that what we’ve approved is actually what’s happening.”
Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman asked Cote if the city could include clauses in event permits that would void them if key elements weren’t present.
Cote said similar clauses already exist but that staff can “absolutely add more,” and that their team is working on “updating our policy framework and ensuring that it’s very strict in terms of the criteria prior to proceeding.”
Cote said that staff are supportive of a review of the festival.
“Without this motion, staff would have done an event review and proceeded to go ahead with preliminary approval for events for the following season,” Cote said. “With this motion, if approved as is, we would do both of them in December, delaying the event preliminary approval.”
Kearns said that while she was open to waiting until December, she feels that there are things that “make this one a very supported standalone [event] to make an easy decision on.”
Curt Benson, chief administrative officer for the city, said that staff “takes the comments of the BDBA very seriously.”
“It’s important that whatever we’re planning in Spencer Smith Park has their awareness and support,” Benson said.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said that she doesn’t blame staff at all for the festival not coming through.
“Due to a number of factors, what the community thought they were getting and what they got were two different things,” Meed Ward said.
She said that while there is a place for food trucks at some events, they “can’t be the event.”
The recommendation to declare the Burlington Waterfront Festival a food truck event and therefore subject to council’s 2023 decision passed Committee of the Whole six to one, with only Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan opposing. It is expected to go before council Sept. 29.
If approved by council, no approval or renewal of the Burlington Waterfront Festival at Spencer Smith Park for 2027 can be finalized until the review is complete and council has considered the staff report.
The recommendation also states that city staff will report back to council by Q4 2026 with “findings and recommendations, including whether the Burlington Waterfront Festival should be renewed at Spencer Smith Park in its current format, whether a maximum number or proportion of food trucks should be established for events in or adjacent to the downtown or defined business area, and whether material changes to an approved event’s programming, commercial composition, scale, or character should trigger further staff review or Council approval.”
Under the recommendation, the Commissioner of Community Services will conduct a review of the event which will include “formal and meaningful engagement with the Burlington Downtown Business Association, downtown restaurants, local business stakeholders, event organizers, and relevant City staff to document impacts, identify lessons learned, and recommend improvements to the Festivals and Events approval and post-event evaluation processes.”
