With no sponsor, New Year’s Portland fest canceled

PORTLAND – After a run of 23 years, Portland’s annual New Year’s Eve festival has been canceled this year after organizers failed to turn up a corporate sponsor.

A festival official announced Tuesday that this year’s New Year’s Portland event would not be held, ending a tradition that goes back to 1983. Organizers said they hope to resume the event next year and change it back to a late-night celebration.

New Year’s Portland has struggled in recent years, with scaled-back entertainment and budget cuts. The event was transferred this year from a coalition of city and business officials to the charitable arm of the Portland Pirates hockey club.

Brian Petrovek, the CEO of the Pirates, said a two-month search failed to turn up a corporate sponsor. But he hopes to expand and relaunch the event next year.

“Noon to midnight – we think that’s where the interest lies,” Petrovek said.

In the past, New Year’s Portland featured rock and jazz bands and went late into the night, culminating with fireworks at midnight. In recent years, the focus has been on family activities, with last year’s event winding down in the afternoon.

The celebration would have cost around $60,000 this year, said Liz Darling, the city’s marketing manager. Earlier events had budgets as high as $175,000.

The event’s previous organizers, a coalition that took over the event from a now-defunct nonprofit four years ago, also had a hard time finding sponsors, Darling said.

Much of the money that businesses set aside to sponsor events like New Year’s Portland has been sapped by other causes, from Hurricane Katrina last year to the tsunami that killed thousands in southeast Asia in 2004, she said.

“I think a lot of people shifted their priorities,” she said.

Organizers view the cancellation as a “wake-up call for the community,” Darling said.