New CNE agreement needed ahead of next year’s event

As the Canadian National Exhibition prepares to close the gates on what it calls a banner year, the focus will quickly switch to whether there will be another edition next year.

“We need to negotiate a new agreement that governs our rights to use these facilities,” said CNE CEO Darrell Brown, who took over in 2019 after the surprise departure of Virginia Ludy just weeks before the gates were set to open that year.

The five-year master agreement with the City of Toronto expired back in March 2022 and work begins on negotiating a new one this month.

While Brown says he didn’t want to negotiate during COVID, he does wish that the old agreement had been extended a couple of years due to the impact of the pandemic.

“COVID made things a little bit uncertain for everybody,” said Brown. “We did not want to negotiate until we knew what kind of fair we had this year and what financial situation we were in coming out of the fair.”

Both the 2020 and 2021 editions of the CNE were cancelled due to COVID.

Ahead of the Labour Day long weekend, CNE organizers said they expect to see a 10 per cent increase in attendance compared to the last time the fair was held in 2019, and they were hopeful final attendance figures would approach the record-breaking 1.6 million set in 2015.

“To be frank, we need about five of these to get back to where we were prior to COVID,” said Brown.

The CNE is a tenant of Exhibition Place and as such has to pay a licensing fee to use the 192 acre site. Brown says that fee alone is $4 million with additional costs pushing the total figure upwards of between $9 million to $10 million.

Brown is not suggesting the CNE might not happen next year, but notes there are a few critical things in play that will affect the fair’s footprint and revenue stream in the years to come.

“There’s definitely a lot of things at play, we have FIFA coming in 2026, lots of redevelopment happening on the grounds – there’s a phase 2 hotel happening with Metrolinx working on a GO station and with TTC extensions as well,” explained Brown.

“Hopefully the city sees that the people regard this as a priority event.”

Brown notes that the CNE employs over 5,000 people and hosts more than 800 vendors during the two week course of the fair, providing a “tremendous economic impact” for the people and businesses who work there.

In 2017, an independent study estimated that the CNE’s economic impact to the city was $93 million and more than $128 million to the province.

When asked if he’s worried about the outcome of negotiations, Brown says, “I think a wise politician would make decisions that enable the CNE to be alright.”

“People care, and so if people care then it should matter to those that are serving the people.”