The recent financial turmoil at Toronto’s Artscape pushed T.O. Webfest to make a last-minute venue change to the Novotel Toronto Centre for its 10th edition.

The two-day annual digital short-form content festival, which begins Tuesday (Sept. 19), was originally slated to take place at the Artscape Daniels Launchpad (ADL) event space, but when Artscape announced on Aug. 28 that it was going into receivership, organizers made the quick decision to pivot.

Artscape is a group of not-for-profit organizations that engage in real estate development, property management and performance and event services. It has served as an affordable venue, studio and residency provider for artists for more than 30 years, and operates 14 cultural facilities.

“We’d invited — and had already paid hotel costs — for international guests. We were so deep in the planning and the confirmation of things that we couldn’t afford to just say, ‘sorry, we can’t do the event anymore,'” Leah Rifkin, festival director and awards show producer, tells Playback Daily.

“It’s our biggest event of the year, and it’s our 10th anniversary,” she continued. “No matter what, we would have had to find some alternative to make [T.O. Webfest] happen.”

By Aug. 29, Rifkin made a decision to remove her organization’s property from the ADL location, where they kept an office. She grabbed backdrops, banners, bags, merchandise and more from the building, and immediately set up mail-forwarding from the office to her home address.

Rifkin says that Artscape was pushing for the event to remain at the venue, but she couldn’t afford to assume the risk in case the situation changed.

Enter Novotel. Rifkin says she was able to confirm the new venue by Aug. 31. All told, the switch-up cost an extra $7,500 to reserve the space at Novotel. It did, however, eliminate some other logistical issues with the ADL venue, such as the need to provide catering vendors and rent supplies such as linens, chairs, and cutlery.

“Kudos to [the Novotel] team [who] sorted this out under short notice, because hotels and venues usually need [notice] months in advance. We were lucky that they had the space available and were willing to work within our budget,” says Rifkin.

In the end, Artscape received a temporary delay of its receivership, which was announced by Toronto mayor Olivia Chow on Sept. 2, thanks to the support of the City of Toronto, TD Bank and additional lenders.

“Artscape is a vital source of affordable living and working space for Toronto’s arts and culture community. Our city needs more, not less, affordable spaces for artists,” wrote Chow on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Artscape did not respond to a request for comment. However, it published a public statement on Sept. 5 that it has “been actively collaborating with key stakeholders to find solutions that will allow for spaces to continue supporting artists and creatives,” and will maintain a “skeleton staff for the time being to ensure minimal disruption to our community” as it works toward a restructure.

This year’s T.O. Webfest features films and content from 15 different countries with 95 total selections. It also invites panelists from major media organizations such as Amazon, Bell Media and CBC, as well as international creators. The festival also hosts an annual awards gala, with the Canadian webseries Chateau Laurier leading this year’s nominees.

Image courtesy of T.O. Webfest