County of Brant Council discussed the future of Paris Drinks Fest during its regular council meeting on Tuesday, October 28, 2025.
Tim Des Islets, President of Noisemaker Presents Inc. and the founder of Paris Drinks Fest, approached Council to request a letter from the County of Brant to once again designate the event as municipally significant.
The letter is needed to begin the company’s rental process and to obtain a special occasion permit from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to put on the event.
The 19-plus Paris Drinks Fest was first held in 2018 as a one-day event, and has since grown into a two-day festival designed to celebrate food and drinks from across southern Ontario.
While it was originally held in Paris Lions Park, it was moved in 2024 to Two Rivers Stadium at the Syl Apps Community Centre because of flooding.
“Syl Apps has been an excellent location for us, and we’re hoping to return there. Syl Apps and the community centre building that we have access to offers infrastructure, accessibility and safety options that, from what we’ve seen, no other park in the County of Brant is able to provide,” said Des Islets …Through our letter of municipal significance, we’ve been reviewing alternate locations again, and are feeling like Syl Apps, at the current time, is the only park available in the County of Brant that would actually work for an event of this size.”
The festival organizer went on to say that while he agreed with recommendations suggesting that the Paris Fairgrounds would be a suitable location for the event, his company’s request to hold the event there in 2023 was denied due to its liquor license policies.
“We reached out to the fairgrounds again this year to see if we can restart that conversation, and haven’t received a response from them,” said Des Islets.
Addressing concerns around alcohol at the event, the organizer said that there’s more to Paris Drinks Fest than that.
“Food sales make up over 25 per cent of all food and beverages sold on site. We’ve added a lot more non-alcoholic options to the event in the last couple years, and in the attendee survey that we sent to everybody who came this year, from the responses we got back, 27 per cent of attendees said that their decision to attend again next year is actually based off the live music, not who’s going to be serving there and what they can consume on site,” he said. “…We also take steps to ensure that attendees are not overserved at this event. All of our servers must have their Smart Serve certifications, which are checked by County of Brant staff prior to the start of the event before we can open the doors.”
“We do hire private security to monitor attendees and service at the event, and this past August, we had paid off-duty OPP officers posted at the exit at the end of each night to ensure that attendees left safely and without any issue,” continued Des Islets. “Even with our record attendance this year, we had zero rejections, we had zero incidents, we had zero reported intoxications on site from securities, servers and OPP.”
He went on to say that as the event grows, as organizers, they’re always trying to reduce any inconvenience to neighbours.
“We took a number of actions over the past couple years, definitely last year when we moved to Syl Apps rather late in the season because of flooding in Lions Park, but we took the same approach this year,” said Des Islets. “We delivered letters to everybody in the community around Syl Apps to let them know, ‘this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re here for, this is our email and our phone number, and you can reach us at any time during the event.’ …We didn’t get a single call from anybody in the neighbourhood with that number, or emails that were about issues happening on site.”
Following his presentation, Ward 2 Councillor Steve Howes said that while Paris Drinks Fest is a good event, he didn’t think that Syl Apps was the proper place for it.
“I’m not convinced that’s a great property for a music festival, at least not one that goes on till 11 p.m.,” he said. “I do believe that it’s time for you to graduate to the Fairgrounds, I’m still hopeful that there’s an opportunity for you to connect with them.”
Howes went on to ask if the letter stating that it’s a municipally significant event and the decision surrounding the location, were tied together, Des Islets explained that they can’t proceed with a majority of their planning efforts if they don’t where they’re holding the event.
“The letter of municipal significance is the first domino for us in a much bigger process. It allows us to apply for our liquor license which we need to run the event, which we need to apply to the County of Brant for a location rental, which we need to have attached to a location. We also need to start booking artists for this and we need to have a location in place so we can have our insurance in place as we proceed with planning,” explained Des Islets. “The live event space has gone from a time when we could plan this event in about six months, to a time where it’s taking us closer to probably 14 to 16 months to plan a successful event. Without knowing where we’re going to put it, we’re currently about four months behind where we should be.”
Howes’ wardmate, Councillor Lukas Oakley, went on to ask if the organizer knew what the decibel level of the event was, and Des Islets said that while industry standard levels are around 120 to 130 decibels, this year’s Paris Drinks Fest was reading just under 100 decibels.
“From what research I was doing, a demo derby roughly runs around the same decibel levels, and your location there is equidistant to the closest homes, as the fairgrounds and where they run their derby event to the closest homes there,” replied Oakley.
Ward 3 Councillor John Bell later pointed out that the people who live near the Paris Fairgrounds chose to do so knowing there would be noise.
“The residents living near Syl Apps didn’t choose to live there in anticipation of a major festival being held in their backyard. …On the contrary, when people moved to the north end of town, the fairgrounds were there long before them; activities on the fairgrounds predate any residential development there,” he said. “People move to the north end, understanding that every year there’s a big fair and lots of noise. And indeed, the fairground is used for many other purposes, including last year, a very big concert. So I think we need to be fair to the people who live in that [Syl Apps] area and not impose something that they never expected to have.”
Bell said that while he agreed that the Paris Drinks Fest has been a success for those attending and for the organizers, he didn’t think it was a success for the wider community.
“My fellow councillors know that I sit on the Board of Health and the County of Brant is one of four municipalities that actually funds the Grand Erie Public Health unit. And the mission of the Grand Erie Public Health unit is to provide health promotion, protection and disease prevention programs and services to help all members of the community achieve and maintain optimal health,” said Bell. “…Recent analysis by the health unit has indicated that the community that we serve exceeds the recommended guidelines for low alcohol consumption to a greater degree, than the average in the province.”
The Councillor went on to say that he believed it was inappropriate for a funding partner of the health unit to provide municipal support to an event whose primary purpose is the consumption alcohol.
“I believe that we shouldn’t offer our municipal facilities to support a for-profit event whose purpose runs counter to clear public health guidelines,” explained Bell. “…So when it comes to requesting support for continued use of Syl Apps, I cannot give it and I cannot give any support to any other municipal venue.”
Noting that the motion on hand suggested that the future Gurney Sports Park (273 Potruff Road) could be used for future Paris Drinks Fest event, Ward 4 Councillor David Miller asked the organizer if that would be a suitable location.
“Absolutely, And what we’re hoping is that, until there is another park that will work within the County of Brant that will be viable, safe and has a realistic opportunity for us to move the event there and grow within it, that we can continue to use Syl Apps,” responded Des Islets. “But I definitely think, from what I’ve heard about the plans for that park, the location of it, the size of it, …we’d be happy to. But at this point, there’s no public park or private location that we have access to that could work for this event.”
Later, the matter of the County of Brant granting Paris Drinks Fest a letter to designate the event as municipally significant, as requested for 2026, was carried on a vote of 9-1, noting that Councillor Steve Howes voted against it.
The rest of the motion, which stated that Council would, in principle, support Paris Drinks Fest at Two Rivers Stadium (so long as organizers fulfill all other process requirements) until the future Gurney Sports Park is completed, at which time future events would be suggested to be hosted at the location; and that staff work with Noisemaker to ensure the new park can accommodate medium to large events like Paris Drinks Fest, failed on a tie vote noting that Councillors Howes, Bell, Peirce, Chamber and Miller voted against it.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
