Tropfest signs deal with EY as founder pledges to keep film festival a free community event

Tropfest organisers have insisted the short film festival will never become a paid ticket event as it signed an agreement with management consultancy EY to help form a strategy to safeguard its future.

The news comes a week after attempts to crowdfund $100,000 to help pay for consultants fell flat for organisers of the festival, which was cancelled at the end of last year due to a funding crisis. It was bailed out by sponsors CGU with the event eventually taking place on February 14 with around 90,000 attendees.

Tropfest founder and director, John Polson, and his long time business associate Michael Laverty, who ran Tropfest Festival Productions (TFP) and essentially organised the event, are now locked in a bitter dispute over the original cancellation amid allegations of financial mismanagement on the part of TFP.