Last week the Gazette collaborated with Visit the County and PEC Wine on the Wassail Special Issue, surely a first for a community weekly. 

A friend wrote from the Upper West Side. “A special issue dedicated to Wassail. Now I know I have seen it all.” 

Yes, the local PEC newspaper was dedicated to the ancient midwinter rite of dipping toast in apple cider, parading with fire to the nearest grove of apple trees, and dancing about drinking and singing while the dripping crust is suspended amidst the branches. 

That the issue scarcely raised an eyebrow here says something, don’t you think? 

It featured an original illustrated cover, a vineyard scene with a giant barn by April Sage. It made the Gazette look like the New Yorker, famous, of course, for its illustrated covers. Inside, a specially dedicated centerspread by local painter Laurie Gruer made one feel as though invited to his table, for an intimate feast of spiced cider, pomanders, and views of the vineyards. 

All of this is not to obscure Wassail itself, a centuries-old celebration — I read accounts that went back to the year 1300 — adapted by ingenious and possibly inebriated County vintners to celebrate, not just the apple harvest, but that of the grapes — and to lure even more would-be visitors to the well in what was once the dull, early-darkening off-season. 

So much for the off-season. I think that might be a thing of the past. Wassail is only the latest in a streak of events over the past few weeks. CAFF, the County’s new film festival, Countylicious, and The Year of Magical Thinking, a one-woman tour-de-force, which featured at Mount Tabor in September to sell out audiences. Clue, a comedy based on a film based on a board game, was put on by Prince Edward Community Theatre. And Shatterbox transformed the Cape into Berlin’s Kit Kat Club in the 1930s, in a timely production of Cabaret, which explores the Third Reich in the decade before WWII. The Department of Illumination hosted its annual Firelight Lantern Festival, which featured a free-of-charge firelight show, giant puppets, and a lantern parade. Hundreds of residents joined in the illuminated march down Picton Main all the way to the Crystal Palace. 

From Countylicious to Wassail, from the Studio Tour to all the musicians at the wineries and pubs, from the Waring House to the Sergeants Mess, just think what artists and the arts do for PEC. The pages of this paper are not only filled with the art of local artists, offered either at a discount or free of charge, but they are also paid for largely by advertising from non-profit arts organizations, from The Regent to the Department, from Music at Port Milford to the Arts Trail.

How wonderful is it, then, that the County’s Community Services, Programs and Initiatives department has, together with the County Arts Council and The County Foundation, devised a plan to direct a portion of the municipality’s tourism revenues to fostering the arts?  It makes perfect sense. Our arts organizations not only make this a flourishing, vibrant and utterly unique place to live, but draw great quantities of high-spending visitors.

The plan, as presented last week, is to take $50k from the Municipal Accommodations Tax to create a dedicated Arts Fund. The County Foundation, which has agreed to manage the fund alongside the municipality’s Community Grants, has pledged a further $25k, bringing the total to $75k. Would-be arts sponsors, also, now have a one-stop place to invest. 

It’s only the beginning, in other words, of a dedicated Arts Fund, managed and grown by The County Foundation, and supported by tourism revenue. 

My only worry is that the County should be putting in more. 

The MAT is a 4% tax on overnight stays, collected by the County’s accommodators — hoteliers, holiday rental owners, and bed and breakfasts. It’s a tax on visitors, not locals. In 2023, it generated $1,568,466. It’s an incredible windfall. $1.5 million, year after year.

Half the proceeds of this tax stay with the municipality, while the other half funds its tourist organizations, Visit the County and StayPEC. Why we have two of these I have no idea. 

After administrative costs ($112,000) were subtracted, $1.456 million was shared out in 2024. About $728,000 went to the County for spending priorities determined in the 2024 budget. The other half funded StayPEC ($105,000) and VTC ($623,000).

So far, the County has elected to spend its share on road maintenance and construction. In the 2023 budget, $700,000 from the MAT went to Roads Construction. 

The 2024 Budget contains a MAT reserve of $912,000. $419,000 went, again, to Road Construction, and a further $118,000 to something called the 2024 Tourism Management Plan — a plan whose managers have noted is nearing the end of its useful life, if it had one to begin with. 

The rest is still sitting there. Unspent. 

The MAT is a rich new revenue stream; the funds only started to flow in 2022. It could use a bit of thought. Creative, strategic, artful thought, like that demonstrated by the creators of this new Arts Fund.

There are no strictures on how municipalities spend MAT funds. VTC and StayPEC must spend their share on destination management and promotion, which includes what the industry likes to call “product development.” In this case, the product is Prince Edward County. Tourism revenues are to be spent developing events and locations here. Much of the money that goes to VTC and StayPEC and to County coffers can and should be invested right back into the community that generated it in the first place. 

What would happen if we funded the arts more generously? Took seriously the fact that PEC has as many artists per capita as Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake, both places with thriving, well-established, and tourist-thronged theatre festivals? What if we made a concerted effort, and invested deeply, in The Regent’s new film festival, in the fine arts, in music and theatre, in our stunning architectural heritage, and in our museums — not at the bare minimum, but generously, and over the long term? 

Kind of exciting to think about.