01
Space between now and August
A hall for a community meeting, a room for a workshop, a corner of a warehouse for storage, a kitchen for a test cook. Space is the thing a volunteer organisation runs out of first.
Partners · the universal door
You have something we need.
Four pages on this site answer four kinds of partner: sponsors, embassies and cultural institutes, media, and the city and funders. This page is for everybody else — a company with a warehouse, a printer with spare capacity, a lawyer with an afternoon, a school with a hall, an organisation with an idea nobody here has had. One form, read by a person, answered every time.
No partner has signed yet · every partnership is answered by a person · current as of 29 August 2026
| Line | State |
|---|---|
| Partners signed | 0 |
| Partners named on this site | 0 — none until an agreement exists |
| Who reads the form | A person, every time |
| Answer time | Within ten working days |
| Sponsorship packages | In preparation for the autumn 2026 budget cycle |
| What a partnership costs you | Whatever you offer, and nothing else |
Partners · 05 of 05 · the catch-all door
Four doors before this one.
If your organisation fits one of these, that page answers your questions faster and in more detail. This page is for everything the four leave out.
Partners · five pages, and this is the catch-all
Six kinds of help · current as of 29 August 2026
What is actually needed.
A first-year festival needs specific things, and the specific things are cheaper for somebody who already has them than for us to buy. This is the honest list as it stands today.
Six kinds of help · the list changes as the plan does
Six kinds · the list is updated as the plan changes
02
Kit on the two days
Marquees, tables, fencing, radios, lighting, a generator, a truck and somebody who can drive it. Lending it for a weekend costs an owner very little and saves a budget line that would otherwise be rented at festival rates.
03
Professional time
Law, accounting, insurance broking, health and safety, translation, accessibility auditing, photography. An afternoon from somebody who does it for a living beats a month of our guessing.
04
Print and making
Signage, banners, a passport booklet, a site map that has to survive rain. Spare capacity on a press is a real contribution and it is one we can credit properly.
05
Reaching people we do not reach
A newsletter, a noticeboard, a congregation, a staff intranet, a student union. Getting the invitation in front of a community we have not met is worth more than most cash.
06
Money, of course
Sponsorship has its own page and its own conversation. If money is what you are offering, start there — the packages are being prepared for the autumn budget cycle, which is when Canadian corporate budgets are actually set.
Nobody is named before they agree. No logo, no name and no mention appears on this site or in a grant application until the agreement says it can.
House rules · six lines, written first
What we promise a partner.
Six lines, written before the first agreement, so nobody has to take them on trust afterwards.
House rules · they apply to every partnership
- Everything in writing. What you give, what comes back, and for how long. A handshake is a good start and a bad record.
- Nobody is named before they agree. No logo, no name and no mention appears on this site or in a grant application until the agreement says it can.
- The festival keeps its own programme. Support buys visibility and access, and it never buys who performs, which community appears, or what an article says.
- You hear what happened. After the edition, a report saying what was actually delivered — including the parts that fell short.
- A partner is not a subscriber. Talking to us puts you on no mailing list, and letters need their own tick.
- Walking away is easy. Ending a partnership takes one message, and nothing on this site holds anybody to a plan that changed.
- Within 10 working daysPlanned You hear back A person reads the form and answers, whether the answer is yes, no or not yet.
- A conversationPlanned What you have, what we need Half an hour on the phone settles more than three rounds of email, and it usually changes what the offer looks like.
- In writingPlanned The agreement Plain language, one page where one page will do, signed by the corporation once it is registered.
- After the editionPlanned The report What was delivered, what was not, and what it looked like from the field.
Tell us what you have.
Two minutes. No pitch deck needed, and no obligation created by sending it.
Intake 13 · partnerships · answered within ten working days
Partners · 05 of 05
Where to go next.
We are small. Is it worth writing?
Yes. A hall for one evening and a van for one weekend are on the list above for a reason, and a first-year festival is built almost entirely out of things that size.
Can we get our logo on the site?
Once there is an agreement saying so. Logos and placements are written into the agreement, and nothing appears on this site before that.
Do you take support with conditions attached?
Depends on the condition. Naming rights on a stage is a normal conversation. Choosing which communities appear or what an article says is not, and the answer to that one is no.
We are a government body. Which page?
The funders page is written for public bodies and grant programmes. Embassies and cultural institutes have their own page. If neither fits, this form reaches the same people.
What if the festival does not go ahead?
The agreement says what happens to anything already given, before it is given. Nobody has paid us anything today, and no in-kind commitment is called on until the permits are settled.
One hall. One van. One afternoon.
A first edition gets built out of things people already own. Tell us which of them you have.