Festival chairman Dave Devenne says that after 20 years, the popular summertime attraction that drew thousands of people and dozens of boats to the scenic South Shore town each year will not take place.

 "It's been a long grind, actually," Mr. Devenne says. "Five years ago the committee completely quit at the end of the year. A small group managed to push some buttons and pull some people in and we got enough folks to keep it going."

 Since that time the festival, which charges no admission fee, has been experiencing financial difficulties, either suffering a loss each year or just managing to break even.

 "You have to have about $5,000 to start the year before you even go to your sponsors for money. That's to pay the deposit on the tent booking and insurance," he explains. "Last year we finished in the hole, so not only are we in the hole, but we don't have any money to start this year."

 Mr. Devenne says that if the committee went to some of their regular sponsors and told them they needed money to get started, "they'd say 'Okay, I'll pay you now.'

 "But once they pay us, if we can't make the festival happen, we can't give them their money back," he says, adding that the cost of putting on the festival has also increased substantially over the past several years.

 "Our budget last year was $55,000 and we didn't raise enough money to cover [that] obviously," he says. "People around this area have been more than generous, but costs are going up.

 Mr. Devenne pointed out, for example, that in the past two years the price of renting the portable toilets that are placed on the town wharf has jumped from $900 to $2,100, while a seven-minute fireworks display now costs a whopping $10,000.

 "And some sponsors that used to give cash now give cash and in-kind, and we certainly appreciate the in-kind donations, because we need them, as well. But you can't pay the guy that owns the porta-potty or the band from Halifax in in-kind. They want cash."

 Mr. Devenne says that while there is no reason to believe that this year will be any different from a financial perspective, the festival was facing another, even bigger problem and that is a lack of volunteers.

 "Not volunteers to sell raffle tickets at the festival, or to pick up the garbage or to work the parade for a couple of hours. It's the 10 or 15 people we need right now to organize it, and it can be for some people literally a couple of hundred hours of effort," he explains, adding that over the years "there aren't too many people in Mahone Bay that haven't volunteered at one time or another.

 "I think it's just another indicator that our population is getting older, and they have volunteered and they're tired of it," he says.

 Earlier this year the organizing committee sent letters out to about 670 residences in Mahone Bay and the surrounding area asking for volunteers to come forward and help organize the 2010 festival.

 "We didn't get one [back]," he says.

 The committee also approached town council as well as the Mahone Bay Chamber of Commerce explaining their situation and while "everyone appreciates the dilemma we're in," neither appears to be in a position to lend assistance.

 "Right now we have three people and we just can't do it," Mr. Devenne says. "So based on the indicators from the chamber of commerce, from the community at large, given our financial situation, given the prospect for the future, given our performance over the last five years, the decision was taken that, for 2010, we're going to let it go."

 Mr. Devenne says that the end of the festival will not affect the town's marina, which is operated by the same society which ran the event, nor does it mean the festival will not be resurrected sometime in the future, albeit in another form.

 However, for at least this year, Mahone Bay will be without its major tourist-season drawing card, a fact that could prove costly to some members of the town's business community.

 "The province tells us it's the biggest festival of its kind in Nova Scotia, it generates more HST dollars typically. And I can't believe it doesn't do a good service for the merchants in Mahone Bay," Mr. Devenne says. "Some people tell me that that weekend makes their financial year."