Winter Wonder Forest organizers scrambling to appease customers after cancellation

Winter Wonder Forest 2020 light display.

Supporters of the Winter Wonder Forest, an outdoor holiday event, are disgruntled they're not being offered a refund after the event was cancelled by organizers.

The outdoor festival in Gibbons northeast of Edmonton, featuring hundreds of Christmas lights, market vendors, visits with Santa, and sleigh and train rides, was cancelled by event organizers on Friday.

Ticket holders were notified they would get further instructions.

True Start Foundation, the non-profit supported by ticket sales from the event, also told customers on social media that lower-than-expected sales had left it unable to pay rent in full for the RV park it uses as a venue.

"Unfortunately, being a small foundation that works from the money it raises from the tickets we sell, we are unable to fulfill a full season payment right away," the statement read.

'THEY JUST SHUT THEIR DOORS'

Karen MacKinnon told CTV News Edmonton her family purchased almost $300 worth of tickets in October to attend the event on Dec. 4.

"We thought it seemed like a nice thing to do," she said, adding, "I didn't know about it last year."

"We all thought it would be a good thing to try out."

Karen MacKinnon's family purchased almost $300 worth of tickets to attend Winter Wonder Fest 2021, and hoped to see organizers offer a refund after cancelling the event.

The family was especially excited to take a sleigh ride and celebrate MacKinnon's granddaughter's birthday.

But a cold snap forced event organizers to close their doors on that day, so they rescheduled for Dec. 27.

"I told my granddaughter this was what we were going to do for her birthday, and we needed to push it out a bit, but we are still going to do it," MacKinnon said. "And my niece, who was really looking forward to the sleigh ride, was fine with it being pushed out.

"They are both pretty disappointed now."

According to MacKinnon, her family was notified by email of the event cancellation and that their ticket purchase would be considered a donation.

"I thought first, 'Oh, it's too bad they had to shut it down.' But the more (my sister-in-law) and I talked about it, I was not OK with it."

"They just shut their doors altogether," she added. "Right now, we are left holding the bag. Not just me and my group. There are, like, hundreds of comments on the site of people just going back and forth and wondering what kind of resolution is going to be offered."

'WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH RESOURCES'

True Start provides affordable housing and financial literacy programs.

Its founder, Steve Sande, said COVID-19 forced the organization to create an event to raise funds since grants were slashed.

This year, organizers expanded plans, wanting to build on the success of their 2020 drive-thru event.

But according to Sande, True Start received a demand notice on Friday for rent until Jan. 9. He said they were given hours to pay it.

"He was going to cut off the power, water to the event if we didn't make the payment, so that basically put us in jeopardy," Sande told CTV News Edmonton.

"We just didn't have enough resources to cover off what we owed."

Steve Sande, True Start Foundation's founder, says the organization had to cancel its 2021 Winter Wonder Forest event because it was given a few hours to pay its venue's rent in full, and didn't have the funds after expanding its building plans, a late construction start, and poor weather impacting ticket sales.

He says that's partially due to an ambitious plan to increase the size of the event to 300,000 square feet, a late construction start, and poor weather hurting sales.

"It's kind of out of our control to us to a certain degree," he commented.

Longriders RV Park sidestepped all blame.

"We did all we could to help them along," the RV park said in a statement posted online. "We'd been waiting since Oct. 1 and not a penny's rent paid and a pile of related invoices ignored.

"Please understand we contributed all we could for as long as we could."

Adding they hoped refunds were offered, management noted at the end of the post: "They have your money ….. we don’t."

REFUNDS OR TAX RECEIPTS?

Sande said True Start is working with its legal team to figure out a way forward.

"We're definitely saddened that we had to make this decision as far as the cancellation is concerned. We are just looking for some grace. We hope people understand that we tried our best," he told CTV News Edmonton.

"One of our strategies is to provide people with a tax receipt and we're just waiting for verification on that… We don't want to force anybody to get a tax receipt versus just actually contributing, as far as a donation is concerned."

MacKinnon hopes True Start decides to offer a full refund, rather than a donation or tax receipt.

"I, like a lot of other Albertans, are happy to donate to different charities – but we choose them," she said.

"I don't buy a ticket for home lottery and they say, 'Sorry, we aren't going to buy the house. We are just going to keep your money.'"

RAD Torque Raceway is offering complimentary passes for its Magic of Lights drive-thru event to anyone with unrefunded Winter Wonder Forest passes. The tickets will be redeemable Dec. 26 to Jan. 8 between 5 and 10 p.m.

"[My husband and I] started our own holiday light magical adventure five years ago with the sole purpose to connect and contribute to our community," owner/operator Kimberly Reeves told CTV News Edmonton.

"What we do here is to create holiday joy, holiday spirit. And I don't want to see any other family that invested in an alternate holiday experience be disappointed."

The Magic of Lights tickets can be claimed by emailing [e-mail] with proof of payment for the Winter Wonder Forest event, date and time confirmation, and contact information.