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Jason St-Laurent, curator for the SAW Gallery that has participated in the festival every year since it started, said that the festival has really helped the gallery reach new audiences but they aren’t disappointed in the break because they know it will make the event better for Ottawa. He also said that the festival needs more support and civic involvement.

“In other municipalities that hold an event like this one, there seems to be a lot of municipal support for the project, by that I mean, municipal financial support,” said St-Laurent. “And we haven’t seen that happen in Ottawa. I think that everyone thought that this was probably the best way to go in terms of re-evaluating, refocusing, and finding strategies for funding.”

Jeff Stellick, executive director of the Ottawa School of Art said that nobody was surprised by the news. Around this time of year would be when participants would start putting things together for the festival, which is usually held near the end of September. But the hiatus was not out of the blue for partners and collaborators. Meetings started before Christmas so both Stellick and St-Laurent have known for a while that there wasn’t going to be a Nuit Blanche this coming fall.

NBOG’s first two years were considered great successes but in 2014 the pop-up festival appeared to lose momentum with fewer attendees and artistic displays. That trend continued in 2015.