A popular summertime festival in downtown Toronto will be put on for the last time this weekend following a successful seven-year run, a decision organizers say they were forced to make due to inconsistent funding from the City of Toronto. The final edition of Yorkville Murals (YVM), dubbed by organizers as “Toronto’s most dynamic art and muralism festival,” will run on Aug. 22 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and August 23 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free and all are welcome. Organizers say last year’s festival was one of the most successful ones ever, drawing more than 70,000 people to the area. That success, they say, was due in part to financial support from the City of Toronto. Yorkville Murals is presented by Taglialatella Galleries and INK Entertainment and organized in partnership with the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area. Festival wasn’t granted city funds in 2026 This year, however, Yorkville Murals was unable to secure any money from the city, “leaving a significant gap in the budget,” organizers say. “Rather than operate at a loss, YVM cut programming—including its popular Yorkville Avenue block party. After this year, it won’t return,” they wrote in an email to CP24. The festival’s organizers noted that more than 60 per cent of YVM’s budget is secured through corporate sponsorship, not government funding. Nonetheless, they said the financial instability from the city has made it impossible to “plan the festival sustainably.” Alan Ganev, the festival’s founder and creative director, spoke with CP24 late Monday afternoon, saying that he is “extremely disappointed” that the festival he and his team conceived and built from scratch is ending on a bittersweet note. “This is a program that we have cultivated for the past seven years. … We created over 200 cultural jobs in the cultural sector, you know, and we’ve done our work to work with major sponsorship on the private sector and created a program that is quite diverse in in the fields of visual arts and fashion and design and poetry, and the city just simply didn’t support us this year,” he said. “And at the scale of where the festival is, it is extremely disappointing because whenever we’re creating a festival in the public realm like this, just our bill for Toronto Police is about $15,000. Just our bill to close the street is $5,000. So we’re paying the city to create a project that is a cultural project, that is a non-for-profit, and on top of that, we receive no support. So on those terms, it’s just really hard to maintain.” Ganev said the funding gap amounts to around $50,000, “not even that much money, which is the sad part,” he said. Ganev, who is a managing partner at Taglialatella Galleries, went on to say that Yorkville Murals has proven to be a successful event and it makes no sense for the city to not reinvest in it on an ongoing basis. “It’s about proper planning and sustainability,” he said. “These are grants that we received last year and we produced our biggest edition yet. So, if you’re going to invest in a project, a project that is checking all the boxes, you can’t simply just take that funding away the next year.” Ganev said they’ve had several conversations with the city’s Economic Development and Cultural departments, adding private partners have done their job. “We just simply need more support from the city. So what I would just say is, for the final year, I hope that people can come and support and enjoy what the festival has to offer,” he said, urging everyone to “check out how complex and beautiful the programming is.” “I hope that everyone can come and support and join this this last celebration.” City says it supports festivals – more than ever before In a written statement sent to CP24, the City of Toronto outlined its ongoing financial support for festivals, which it said increased from just over $2 million in 2022 to $4.1 million in 2026. The city also indicated that the total number of festivals receiving support also increased from 36 in 2022 to 137 in 2026. “(We recognize) the important contributions festivals and events make to Toronto’s cultural landscape and the vibrancy of our communities. Demand for support exceeded available funding and, as a result, the City was not able to fund all applicants, including Yorkville Murals,” Kayla Lewis, the city’s manager of community, wrote. “The Cultural Festivals Funding Program and the Special Events Stabilization Initiative are competitive programs. Applicants must apply annually — year-over-year funding is not guaranteed. Both programs received a high volume of applications in 2026, reflecting the strength and diversity of Toronto’s festivals and events sector.” The city went on to say that in in 2026, 78 festivals and events were awarded $2.7 million in funding through the Cultural Festivals Funding Program (CFFP), while 59 festivals and events were awarded $1.35 million in funding though Special Events Stabilization Initiative (SESI). “Applications to CFFP and SESI are reviewed through a competitive, peer-assessment process. Funding recommendations are informed by a panel of community leaders with experience in festivals and events, who evaluate submissions against established program criteria,” it said, noting that the SESI review panel also includes city staff with expertise in event safety and production.
