Scotiabank will drop its sponsorship of Toronto’s Contact Photography Festival, after more than 10 years of partnership. The bank has funded much of the festival’s budget since 2010, when it became its title sponsor.

Contact has been held in Toronto every May since 1997, and it features work by local and international emerging and famous artists, documentary photographers and photojournalists. The festival, which attracts up to 1.5 million people each year, offers a variety of programming, including a book fair, seminars, conferences, talks, panels, workshops and exhibitions. The 2023 edition of the festival included 180 public photography sites spread throughout the city, including indoors and outdoors. Scotiabank will stop sponsoring the festival after this year’s edition.

The bank has been focusing on social causes and sports in recent years. In 2021, it launched ScotiaRise, “a 10-year, $500 million community investment initiative designed to promote economic resilience among disadvantaged groups,” according to the company. And in 2017, it acquired the name rights to the former Air Canada Centre. The Scotiabank Giller Prize for fiction, an award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection, and the Hot Docs film festival are still sponsored by the bank.

The news comes as several festivals and arts groups in Ontario are facing financial challenges as a result of the pandemic. The Just for Laughs Toronto comedy festival, which was scheduled to take place in September, was cancelled after the event’s organization stated that it is restructuring its operations. Meanwhile, the Shaw Festival recorded a $5.7 million deficit in 2023, forcing it to reduce operations for the next season.

And according to a federal government report published this year, Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre is also in a difficult position. “Harbourfront Centre does not yet have a sustainable operating foundation. It also lacks sufficient revenues to fund much-needed capital renovations, which will help to attract cash from sponsorships and other sources of funding,” said the government in the report.

Recently, Bell also dropped its 28-year lead sponsorship of the Toronto International Film Festival. Last August, the company said in a release that it was ending its association with TIFF “in order to invest in other opportunities that are core to our business.”