Vancouver’s popular summer-solstice lantern festival will not be happening this year. Owing to financial constraints, Public Dreams Society, which also organizes the annual Halloween Parade of the Lost Souls in the Commercial Drive area, has decided to cancel what would have been the 20th annual Illuminares lantern procession around Trout Lake.

“The costs for insurance and safety and security and all of the infrastructure”¦all of those things just keep rising, and the funding that we get has not risen,” Pamela McKeown, acting artistic managing director of Public Dreams, told the Straight.

McKeown said last year’s city strike also put a dent in Public Dreams’ finances when the society was unable to use the Trout Lake Community Centre for workshops and dressing rooms. Staffing changes have also had an impact, she added. Dolly Hopkins stepped down as artistic director in February of 2007, and later in the year executive director Helena Campbell retired.

McKeown noted there are plans to bring back Illuminares in 2009, but that the organization’s plans may change. “There has been a significant staffing shift, and I think that with that comes an opportunity to revitalize an organization and take a look at what the mandate is,” she said.