Supercrawl to receive funding bump following cuts last year

Hamilton’s Supercrawl has been given a financial boost from the provincial and federal governments, MPs announced Friday.

MPs Filomena Tassi and Lisa Hepfner were in Hamilton Friday morning to announce new capital going towards a number of events to support southern Ontario’s tourism growth.

One of the key events singled out was Supercrawl, receiving $200,000 of the total $2.5 million being awarded across 17 different ventures.

Supercrawl is three days of free music and events that attract as many as 250,000 people, and said to be worth about $25 million to the Hamilton economy.

READ MORE: Hamilton’s Supercrawl faces funding crunch for summer event

This funding announcement comes one year after the festival had make due with serious budget cuts.

In 2023, Supercrawl received $65,000 from Experience Ontario, the government-led program that provides grants for tourism ventures in the province.

In previous years, the event had received much larger amounts of money, and the reported expectation for last year was that Supercrawl would be receiving closer to $300,000.

Festival director Tim Potocic has previously said the event’s budget is around $1.2 million, and cuts to funding like these would “have long-term effects.”

Supercrawl is set to take over James Street North the second week of September.

WATCH: MPs Filomena Tassi and Lisa Hepfner will be in Hamilton Friday morning to make an announcement in support of tourism growth projects in Hamilton and across southern Ontario.