Item - 2023.EP6.2

The Board of Governors of Exhibition Place:

1.  Approved the 2024 Operating Budget attached as Appendix A to the report (October 13, 2023) from the Chief Executive Officer, Exhibition Place.

2.  Directed the Chief Executive Officer to submit the 2024 Operating Budget to the City Financial Planning Division as part of the 2024 Budget Process.

Toronto, being North America’s 4th largest City is home to Exhibition Place. Our site currently hosts 1,260 events with approximately 5.5 million visitors per year for exhibitions, conventions, events, and entertainment, and we are moving towards becoming a 365-day destination for an impressive range of activities.

The Exhibition Place vision is to become Canada’s premier destination for conventions, exhibitions, events, and entertainment. We are a unique site in North America, and our goal is to transform Exhibition Place into an intimate space that facilitates unimpeded movement of people.

2024 Budget

On August 28, 2023, the City’s Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer provided supplementary instructions for all City Divisions and Agencies for 2024.

City Financial Planning directed ABC's to prepare a more realistic 2024 Operating Budget and to make every effort to eliminate or reduce 2024 incremental base budget pressures, and continue to provide viable offsets towards base budget increases through annual budget review activities. All sustained COVID-19 impacts should be phased out or costs absorbed into the 2024 Base Budget if required.

As shown in Schedule A below, the 2023 year-end forecasted is a deficit of ($0.800) million which is favourable by $1.400 million to the 2023 approved budget deficit of ($2.200) million.

With respects to the Exhibition Place Conference Centre Reserve Fund, the balance at the end of 2023 is forecasted to be $3.910 million. This reserve is a source of funding for both state of good repair, as well as, for the City loan repayment of the renovated Beanfield Centre in 2009.

2023 being the first full year of operations without interruptions after the pandemic, staff have worked closely with industry insiders in developing our 2023 Operating Budget. Despite all the challenges from bouncing back after the pandemic, staff are cautiously optimistic projecting the recovery of our operation is progressing well towards pre-pandemic levels, following same trends as other businesses in the same industry.

The latest findings from the Global Exhibition Barometer research concluded in July 2023 by UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, show that trade shows and exhibitions are remarkably bouncing back after the pandemic shut down, with companies from most global markets achieving revenues close to their 2019 pre-pandemic levels. The latest results also show that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business is now one of the least pressing issues. 2023 revenue for North American market is expected to reach 90 - 94 percent of comparable 2019 levels. The industry is evolving both on digital products and services and on sustainability. New technologies like generative artificial intelligence applications are being explored, while staffing and changing in customers expectation remains key concerns for most: https://www.ufi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/31st_UFI_Global_Barometer_July_2023.pdf