Every year, Drake throws a big party in Toronto. Friends, well-wishers, and members of the inner sanctum of the Illuminati join him for a special night of entertainment, and the entire population of Ontario (all 13.6 million, or so) tries to get a ticket. Most people fail, and spend the summer saving pennies so they can cop tickets from StubHub for 6ix times the price.
This annual party is called OVO Fest, and for some reason, a segment of the Canadian taxpayers were not happy to find out they were subsidizing the bill for Drake’s big bash in 2014. Last year, OVO Fest obtained $300,000 in support from the Celebrate Ontario grant, a fund that doles out millions of dollars in funding for events that will help bring tourists and their dollars to Ontario. The majority of complaints boiled down to “Drake is rich already,” an argument that falls apart when you realize that most of the events that receive funding from Celebrate Ontario have banks as their key sponsors, not rappers.
Though the $300,000 subsidized Andre 3000’s wig budget in 2014, OVO Fest will not be getting a dime from the taxpayers in 2015. It’s unclear what made the Ontario government kibosh OVO Fest’s application, but Celebrate Ontario receives thousands of submissions annually, it was never a guarantee. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that Drake will have to scale back this year’s production budget. If 2015’s “special guests” are OB O’Brien and Spinner from Degrassi, blame the Ontario government.
Some of the festivals that did receive funding from Celebrate Ontario include HotDocs ($246,150), The Canadian Tulip Festival ($270,000), and something called PIRATEFEST, which to be fair, sounds way more lit than OVO Fest.
