Industry Canada's "Marquee Festivals" program

Industry Canada has published application guidelines for their Marquee Festivals program, one of the stimulus items in the 2009 budget.

According to their website,

Marquee Tourism Events Program (MTEP) has been established to provide targeted, time-limited support to assist existing marquee tourism events to enhance their offering and deliver world-class programs and experiences. By the summer of 2009, Industry Canada will provide initial funding to marquee events that significantly promote tourism, in time to respond to the many events that bring tourists to Canada during the summer vacation period. Through this program, we will assist marquee events attract international audiences, which may have been impacted by the global economic downturn.

The program defines a marquee event as an annually recurring world-class event that is well established and has a long-standing tradition of programming and management excellence. A marquee tourism event generates significant levels of tourism and aims to attract a significant amount of international media attention to Canada as a tourism destination. This support will contribute to the short-term and long-term growth and viability of Canada's visitor economy by increasing or sustaining the number level of tourism and tourism-related spending, providing an economic stimulus to ensure that tourism events can remain competitive from within and outside Canada.

Further information, as well application forms, can be found on the Industry Canada website.

Deadline for the program is May 8th.