Council hoping to attract film and TV production

Lethbridge City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to take more steps in attracting film and television production to our city.

Council was asked to allocate $780,570 to hire two full-time liaison positions for the city and Economic Development Lethbridge.

The contract with the city would be for 2.5 years and the EDL position would be for 3.3 years both starting in mid 2024.

Trevor Lewington, the CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge broke down the costs for his group.

“What is proposed today is a total of $461,000 and change, which actually then provides that head count with some travel dollars, some marketing dollars. So it’s obviously a very different scope than what was originally contemplated. But I do believe at least this gives us some flexibility to get some of that work done. And I’d be happy to take that back to the board for approval.”

Councillor Belinda Crowson added that the city is looking to get into the film and television production industry to help diversify our economy.

“Now, I greatly appreciate the work that EDL and administration have done to try to find the best way to meet the needs of this industry as we move into it. I know this isn’t probably completely satisfactory to everything that we are looking to do, but it does provide us a way forward. It does make sure that we can create all the proper policies, paperwork, everything we need to do as we’re moving into this. And I am so glad that they have worked together, come up with this and that we’re moving forwards.”

City staff said that both positions in the report are needed if the city would like to move forward with the film permitting process as recommended by Winged Whale Media.