District of Sicamous council has decided to go for one big bang for its bucks.
Councillors decided to go back to one big fireworks display on Canada Day and give the smaller August long weekend one a miss.
Fireworks have been long been a popular part of Sicamous’ Canada Day celebrations. But widespread flooding in 2012 forced the district to cancel the fireworks on Canada Day. Instead, the show was moved to the August long weekend.
Last year, the council of the day decided to split the budget, putting three-quarters of the $20,000 budget on the Canada Day display and $5,000 into the August show.
“It was somewhat controversial in the past… There was some discussion and the community got involved,” says Rysz. “They didn’t think we should do one, so we decided to allocate 75 per cent to Canada Day and 25 per cent to August.”
But Rysz says that while the 75 per cent for Canada Day made for a fairly nice show, the August show wound up being somewhat anemic.
“So council decided, we’re going to just have one big bang-up show on Canada Day and none in August,” he says. “We want to have one really good fireworks display; we don’t want to bring 300 to 400 boats off the lake for a few minutes.”