Port Dover , Canada — The Port Dover Kinsmen Club wants Friday the 13th biker rallies to be given official festival status to help stem the drop in revenues it collects from the day.

The club helps organize and run the event – which brings more than 100,000 people to the town – and covers costs such as port-a-potties and overtime for county employees doing cleanup.

It pays for this in part by collecting fees from vendors who come for the day. That has dropped by more than half, from $29,030 in 2014 to $12,000 in May of this year, said club member Amie Ferris.

The problem, said Ferris, is the fee structure. Vendors must pay the county’s Friday the 13th fee of $537 as well as $500 to either the club or the Port Dover Board of Trade for the space they use.

The combined fee is too much, she said, and the number of vendors is dropping. In previous Friday the 13ths, the Kinsmen rented space to roughly 59 vendors. This year it was 27.

“The fees are too high for them to consider it profitable,” she said.

Other events in Norfolk, such as Bayfest or Summerfest in Port Dover, are official festivals. That status allows vendors to pay just one fee, which goes to the organizers who in turn pass a small cut on to town hall.

Vendors are going to the cheaper festivals and foregoing Friday the 13th because of the cost, Ferris said.

(Via: simcoe reformer)