The show may not go on in Port Moody.

The annual Golden Spike Days festival, which has been a fixture in Port Moody for 33 years, is in jeopardy after its organizing society learned it would not be getting the $30,000 gaming grant promised by the provincial government.

The cut is yet another blow to Spike organizers, who this year had to implement the first-ever admission fee after several corporate sponsors backed out, citing economic woes, leaving the society with only 41% of its typical sponsorship funds.

Without the grant, the society’s cash reserves were depleted to pay bills from the 2009 festival and organizers say the festival may not be held in 2010.

“We were so counting on that,” Sally Comin, a director with the Golden Spike Days Society, said of the gaming grant.

The society’s treasurer, Reiner Specht, said organizers were blind-sided by the funding cut, which puts them in a “terrible position” because they were depending on the gaming grant to help make up for the loss in corporate sponsorships.

Now, they’re asking the community to help save the festival with their time, money or both.

“The plea has to go out to the people of the Tri-Cities and beyond, as well as businesses small and large, to help us fundraise so this heritage festival survives,” Specht said.

Spike needs volunteers, too. Each year, the festival is planned and run by an unpaid board of directors and legions of volunteers (it is not a city-run event, although Port Moody does provide some in-kind services).

The annual budget is usually about $160,000 but without the gaming grant and sponsors, the 2009 board of directors is trying to come up with fundraising ideas to pass on to next year’s board.

“It can’t not go on,” Comin lamented. “I’ve been going to this festival since I was seven years old, for 33 years. It’s fun, it’s the start of summer, it’s the coming together of the community.”

The Golden Spike society is operated by a new board every year that applies for gaming funds annually; they were not among the community groups with three-year commitments whose funding was recently reinstated by the province.

Each year, Golden Spike Days, the Tri-Cities’ biggest community festival, celebrates Port Moody’s history as the western terminus of the CP Rail line linking Canada from coast to coast.

• Anyone interested in volunteering for the society should attend its annual general meeting Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. at Port Moody city hall. For more info, email office@goldenspikedays.bc.ca.

spayne@tricitynews.com