The city-owned Cariboo Rocks the North event is just around the corner and I’ve got some questions.
According to the contract,, which was only made public this year, the city provides everything, from the bands to the lighting to the janitorial staff.
But we gave Pacific Western Brewery (PWB), the makers of Cariboo beer, exclusive pouring rights, exclusive non-alcohol sales, 160 weekend passes, and all the naming and branding privileges, as well as the right to run the event as it sees fit.
The city gets $25,000 from PWB for all of this.
While PWB wins pretty big as far as getting their name in the spotlight and getting a lot of their beer sold (I wonder what those numbers are?), the biggest contributor to this festival - the Prince George taxpayer - is pretty much ignored.
Instead the glory goes to a private company and more particularly city councillor Kyle Sampson, who manages all aspects of the event and happens to work for PWB as a salesman and marketer.
I don’t have anything against Sampson. I don’t really agree with his politics but he’s a likeable guy with a knack for promoting good things in this city.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t fix up this deal moving forward.
The contract says PWB, and I’m assuming Kyle Sampson, gets 160 weekend passes, at $198 per ticket, equivalent to $32,000 in tickets, to give away. Plus there are VIP passes, the value of which I don't know.
This is kind of weird.
There are no requirements in the contract for oversight or accountability as to who gets these freebees.
The way I see it, these tickets are ultimately a taxpayer resource and it appears a sitting city councillor gets to use this resource for the benefit of his personal, political and professional brand.
And that’s not right.
Coun. Sampson recently made a post giving away some tickets that he claims he purchased with his own money, like he has done “every year.”
I don’t remember him saying he purchased those giveaway tickets with his own money in previous years, but I’ll take his word on that.
That doesn’t mean as a city you should give sweetheart deals like this to one particular brewery in town when we have many of them. I certainly hope we didn’t do that because an influential city councillor works for that brewery.
I think moving forward a rebrand that spotlights the city, makes free tickets and VIP giveaways a little more transparent, and opens up the local beer sales would be better for the event, better for the city, better for other breweries in town, and better for Kyle Sampson.
James Steidle is a Prince George writer.
