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April 3, 2020

Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival Postponement FAQs

Q: Why did you decide to postpone versus cancel the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival?
A: In consultation with different stakeholders including public officials, government agencies, funders and dragon boat teams, we arrived at the decision to try and hold the Festival this year rather than cancel the event. We hope that in September the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival will serve to re-ignite and inspire our community to come together after significant adversity.

However, we recognize that health and safety is paramount, and we are actively monitoring the effects of COVOD-19 on our communities. We will continue to keep everyone up to date on our decisions moving forward.

We have also worked with key staff to implement new safety and sanitation measures as a standard part of our operating procedures for our events. This will include regular disinfection of commonly touched surfaces or shared equipment, installation of hand sanitizer and hand wash stations across our sites and facilities (once products are available again), and temporary showers at our larger events. As we get closer to our event dates, we will be releasing additional information on our new safety procedures.

Q: Is September a realistic date for the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival?
A: At this point, we believe that September is the latest month that we can realistically hold Vancouver’s festival. In our statement released on April 2, we indicated that we are cautiously and actively monitoring the situation. We continue to liaise with our partners, government agencies, public health officials, teams, and other organizations across the province and Canada to determine our next steps.

We hope that the paddling community can safely return to the water sooner rather than later, and will issue additional information about our plans as the situation develops.

Q: The new Concord dates hit Penticton and Portland paddling events. Did you consider different dates?
A: We tried to get different dates but we were unable to get our preferred dates due to other booked and confirmed events already taking place in Vancouver.

We activated our backup plans as soon as it started becoming a possibility that our original dates in June might not work, and we quickly identified weekends that we wanted to avoid, especially the weekend of September 12-13. When it became clear that there were no other dates or options, our senior staff were personally in touch with both Portland and Penticton organizers to express our deep apologies for the inconvenience.

Know that we worked hard to avoid these dates and did everything in our power to avoid date conflicts, but unfortunately, we were not successful in avoiding this particular weekend. It has been highly difficult to organize regattas and festivals this year due to the limited dates available for rescheduled events, and we apologize to other race organizers and affected teams for the date conflict.

Q: Why is there an administrative fee/holdback? Some other regattas are not charging an administrative fee/holdback.
A: During our deliberations about how we should handle race registrations (including transfers, holdbacks, and refunds), we decided on extending our regular registration policy. This policy is outlined below.

We respect that other events are able to provide a full refund, but note that circumstances in each community and event are very different. We have spoken to other dragon boat race organizers, other sporting events, and public festivals across Canada, and there is a wide range of registration policies ranging from full refunds to no refunds. Ultimately, there will be variables that affect each event’s capacity for refunds during these unprecedented times.

In our case, we have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing for this year’s event (the Society that runs the Festival is a year-round operation), and expect as a result of COVID-19 to also experience revenue shortfalls even bigger than the financial crash over 10 years ago. The expenses incurred regardless of if we run events are significantly higher than some other organizations due to our scale, and larger than the total budget of many smaller clubs.

With a 25% administrative fee/holdback, we hope to achieve a balance between doing right by teams and ensuring we are able to continue serving the paddling community in the future. While we are larger than other paddling organizations, we have always strived to deliver as much value as possible to the paddling community and the community at large despite operating with very tight margins. We hope that teams can make it out to the new dates or transfer to 2021.

As an additional gesture of good faith, we have changed our race registration policy to accommodate refunds until April 15. However, we again hope that teams can paddle this year or transfer their registrations to 2021 rather than opting for refunds.

Q: What is your registration policy? How do we confirm our participation in the new 2020 dates, transfer to 2021, or ask for a refund?
A: Our regular registration policy provides for refunds up until March 31, minus a 25% administrative fee/holdback. In light of COVID-19, we have modified this policy in good faith. All teams have been transferred to the new dates at no charge. Transfers to 2021 or refunds will be provided, minus a 25% administrative fee/holdback.

If you’re planning on joining us in 2020, you don’t have to do anything at this time.

If you want to transfer to 2021 or request a refund, please email us at info@dragonboatbc.ca. We will collect and verify information, and then work on processing your request. Transfers to 2021 do not yet have a set close-off date, but once we get closer to the close-off date, we will remind teams to check their registrations.

Refund requests must be emailed to info@dragonboatbc.ca before April 15, 2020. Please note that because we have physically moved out of our office, we are estimating that it will take at least 90 days after the refund window closes to get cheques sent out. We thank you for your patience and understanding in the meantime.

Q: How much are you holding back?
A: We are holding back 25% for teams that are transferring to 2021 or requesting a refund. Based on our calculations, the administration fee for a team that registered for the Festival at full price works out to just over $20 a person. However, the vast majority of teams do not register at full price, taking advantage of our various subsidy programs or early bird discounts.

For example, Junior teams have been fully subsidized fully by the Festival for over 10 years now. Local senior/U24/All Access or visiting adult teams would incur administrative fees of around $12/person. The average administration fee incurred by most US teams per person would be in the range of about $8 due to currency conversions.

We compared the administrative fee we are applying to other large events in Vancouver and across Canada.

We hope that our policy has provided reasonable flexibility to teams while helping us weather this storm.

Q: How has the Festival already cost so much?
A: As we noted above, we incur costs regardless of whether our events run. We have year-round staff that create the foundation for our events, apply for permits, work with partners and on-site booths, help teams with registrations/waivers or planning their trips, work on race rules, create rough race grids, liaise with government agencies on requirements, and much more.

In addition, our Festival operations aren’t just three days; community outreach, advertising, insurance, logistics, volunteer and partner recognition, website hosting, database maintenance, and other fees add up quickly. Other costs include finance and accounting, the equipment we need to operate, office supplies, rent for offices and professional service fees.

In January, we also experienced a significant break-in at our offices that added to our overall operation costs this year.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the things that the Festival needs to operate outside of the three days that most people experience, but hopefully provides you an idea of what is going on behind the scenes.

Q: When are you announcing what’s going on with the Vessi 500 Championship, Steveston Dragon Boat Festival, Oddball 2,000 Challenge, or the Dragon Zone Youth Regatta?
A: At this time, the 10th anniversary of the Steveston Dragon Boat Festival is continuing as planned on August 22.

We continue to be in discussions with the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation around dates for the Vessi 500 Championship, Oddball 2,000 Challenge, and the Dragon Zone Youth Regatta. We have submitted different date options to the City and Park Board, who will be reviewing all requests for rescheduled events shortly.

As soon as we have clarity on dates, we will reach out again to affected teams to advise them on the next steps.

Q: What’s going on with practices that we’ll miss because of COVID-19 closures?
A: If you are practicing out of Dragon Zone Paddling Club, we will be issuing a FAQ similar to this one to help guide you.

For individual program registrants, we will send a chart of new program date options by mid-April if not sooner. You will have the opportunity to confirm a transfer into those program dates, upgrade to a longer program, or add a race option. If you prefer to defer your registration to 2021, we will be happy to do so minus a 25% administrative holdback fee.

For teams, we will be issuing practice credits to make up sessions that you’ve missed. We were also previously developing a new practice model that seems like it will incorporate these practice credits seamlessly. This is still something we’re working on between our work in rescheduling races and programs, answering questions from media and teams, and taking care of operations that still need our attention during our closure period.

Please understand that while we are working to make things happen quickly and give you information, we will need time to evaluate the overall situation. We will provide updates whenever we can. Your patience and understanding is appreciated.

Q: Is there some way we can help?
A: Thank you for your generous offer. During these tough times, we’ve had very kind offers from the paddling community to help us out. Our staff are already hard at work trying to bring things together and plan out next steps. The best help we can get right now is by having teams stick with us and provide as much patience, understanding, and support as we navigate these turbulent waters.

If any team or paddler is also in a position to financially assist the Society, we would be deeply grateful. Please email us at info@dragonboatbc.ca. As we noted above, this year is expected to wipe out hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenues that we normally rely on to deliver our programs and events. Staff are working tirelessly to creatively minimize the impact of the budget cuts we’ve been implementing, and any support from the community is highly welcome.

Q: Who can I contact for other questions I have?
A: As our offices are closed as a result of COVID-19, in-person and telephone service is temporarily unavailable. We are available to assist you via email at info@dragonboatbc.ca. We also are providing updates through our social media channels. Find us on Facebook at Dragon Boat BC or Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival, or on Instagram at @dragonboatbc.

Our public statements and updates are being posted at this time at the following websites:
All media statements: dragonboatbc.ca/media
Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival: concorddragonboatfestival.ca/alerts
Steveston Dragon Boat Festival: stevestondragonboatfestival.ca/alerts
Dragon Zone Paddling Club including Vessi 500 Championship, Oddball 2,000 Challenge, and Youth Regatta: dragonzone.ca/alerts

Please direct media inquiries to info@dragonboatbc.ca at this time.

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