Festival Manager at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Festival Manager - Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival

This position has a planned start date of January 2025 

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus – artists, leaders, and thinkers – to unleash their creative potential.

We acknowledge, with deep respect and gratitude, our home on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain. In the spirit of respect and truth, we honour and acknowledge the Banff area, known as “Minhrpa” (translated in Stoney Nakoda as “the waterfalls”) and the Treaty 7 territory and oral practices of the Îyârhe Nakoda (Stoney Nakoda) – comprised of the Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney Nations – as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy comprised of the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Shuswap Nations, Ktunaxa Nations, and Metis Nation of Alberta, Rockyview District 4. We acknowledge all Nations who live, work, and play, help us steward this land, and honour and celebrate this place.

The Opportunity

The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival team is looking for a Festival Manager who is passionate about storytelling, adventure, and appreciation of the world's mountain places. A key leader in a flagship event at the Banff Centre, this role oversees the planning, execution, and evaluation of the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival and related events. This includes managing competitions, workshops, residencies, community engagement, and year-round programming, both in-person and online.

As part of the festival programming team, the Festival Manager helps bring the festival’s vision and strategy to life through strong project management and logistical coordination. They lead a diverse team, ensuring clarity of roles, respectful collaboration, and high standards of guest experience. The role is key in positioning Banff Centre as a premier destination for arts, culture, and leadership events.
 

Roles and Responsibilities

Reporting to the Director, Mountain Culture, below are some key accountabilities: 

Operations

• Lead the overall logistical planning and event management for effective delivery of the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, Mountain Film Competition, Mountain Book Competition, Mountain Photo Essay Competition, Adventure Filmmakers Workshop, Moonlighter Film Camps, community engagement activities, and year-round offsite partner film screenings.
• Works closely with Banff Centre teams to ensure the successful planning and delivery of festival and related programs.
• Manages assigned program budgets, resource allocation (people, materials, spaces, places, partners, technology) and deliverables.
• Acts as one of the primary contacts for the online platform provider, keeping current on platform updates and workflows.
• Works together with the Business Development Lead on all online products, revenues, marketing materials, sales, reconciliations and affiliate links, as they pertain to Festival programming.
• Liaises externally in collaboration with the Strategic Sponsorship Manager, with local partners and businesses for off-site events, parking, transportation, accommodation, hospitality, etc. 
• Accountable to meet established financial goals, timelines and festival and program objectives.
• Develops and maintains professional, informed working relationships with key clients and funders to ensure long-term loyalty, opportunity and sustainability.      
• Contributes to the provincial, federal and private funding applications and final reports. Ensures measurement and tracking of project/event impact and provides analysis of this information in a timely manner, for both on-going event improvement, and for funder/client related reporting.
• Prepares supporting documents and required financial budgets, reports, reconciliations and invoices for assigned projects and monitors expenses against budget/forecast.
• Serves as the primary contact in Mountain Culture for IT/S and database management, and ensures department follows accurate database management practices in alignment with the standards and procedures required by the department and Banff Centre.
   

Human Resource Management, Team Building and Interdivisional Cooperation

• Enables the Mountain Culture staff to function as a high performing team, maintaining open communication, clear objectives and priorities, and a culture of positive that is consistent and in alignment with Banff Centre values and is welcoming and inclusive, supporting a diverse workforce.
• Liaises with Director, Mountain Culture and Manager, World Tour and Human Resources to assess and define yearly seasonal staffing needs for the festival and with the program delivery team.
•  Identifies individual and team training needs in areas of responsibility. 
• Ensures that employees fully understand their roles, responsibilities, and performance standards and provide ongoing formal and informal feedback, coaching and support as employees strive to achieve expectations.
• Provides day to day leadership, direction and supervision to the Event Specialist- Competitions, Film & Event Specialist and all Festival Coordinators, and seasonal Festival staff as required, effectively allocating assignments and overseeing workloads.
• Fosters an internal culture that maintains the highest standards for customer service, excellence of staff, participant and guest experience, and fiscal, operational, and organizational integrity. 
• Maintains effective working relationships with team members, internal partners, customers, the union and other stakeholders.
• Works closely with the Human Resources Team in all aspects of human resource management including hiring, training, payroll, performance management, to ensure policies, procedures, contractual, legislative and work culture expectations are met.  
   

Qualifications and Educational Requirements

• 5+ years of proven management experience, preferably within an event or festival environment
• University degree in an arts discipline or business, or related area of study
• Proven financial and analytical skills
• Solid understanding of events, marketing, promotion and production
• Highly developed project management skills
• An ability to formulate long and short-range goals, while anticipating and responding to flexible program needs
• An understanding and appreciation of Mountain Culture and its place within the global mountain environment is an asset
• Advanced communications and writing skills are considered an asset
• Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to develop relationships and work effectively at all levels
• Experience leading and managing diverse teams
• Exceptional collaboration, leadership and business consulting skills
   

 Employment Terms and Benefits

• In accordance with the terms of employment governing Management/PSP employees, this is a salaried, full time position, subject to a 6-month probationary period.
• The salary range for this position is $68,714 - $102,040 based on experience.
• The successful candidate will enjoy twenty paid vacation days and four personal days annually, extended medical and dental benefits, and participation in an employer-matched pension plan.
• Additional benefits of working at Banff Centre are:
  • Transitional staff housing options (based on availability) 
  • Hybrid work environment (3 days in the office, 2 days remote) with the expectation to be fully onsite prior to the festival
  • Professional development
  • Employee Assistance Program 
  • Health care spending account 
  • Staff cafeteria and restaurant discounts 
  • Onsite fitness facility at a discounted rate – first month free for new staff!

Application Process

• We are accepting applications for the Festival Manager until a suitable candidate has been found.
• Candidates offered a position with Banff Centre, in this capacity, will be required to obtain a criminal record check verifying a clear record.
• Visa Requirements: Candidates must be legally eligible to work in Canada. Banff Centre is unable to assist candidates in obtaining Canadian work authorization.