Coventry's much-loved Godiva Festival could become "more commercially focused" with much higher ticket prices, if planned council cuts go ahead.

The council is proposing to stop all direct funding to the family festival in two years' time, which would save £300,000 per year.

But councillors defended their plan to still run the event, calling it a "fundamental part of Coventry".

The move is one of the "tough options" on the table for the authority which faces a budget black hole of £30 million next year and is already tackling a multi-million gap for 2024/5.

Most of the pressures on the budget are from inflation and soaring demand for social care and housing help, with the soaring cost of services not keeping up with government funding, according to council reports.

All 18 plans will go to the public for comments before a final budget is agreed in February. 

Details of how changes to Godiva Festival could hit residents are revealed in papers for a council meeting next Tuesday (12 December.)

An 'Equality Impact Assessment' said: "The continuing financial pressures on the council to achieve savings has resulted in this proposal being formulated

– to remove all direct Council funding for the Godiva Festival by 2025/26. The emphasis will likely shift from a community-oriented event to a narrower, more commercially focused one.

"It is likely that audience will reduce and/or come from a broader catchment area and will be less representative of the city's demographic.

"It is also likely that opportunities for local communities and emerging artists to perform or participate in the festival programme will reduce.

"In the absence of a council subsidy, ticket prices would significantly increase as the primary source of revenue for the event.

"This will significantly impact all groups as potential attendees of the event."

It added: "There is a potentially negative impact on those living in the areas of highest deprivation – as increased ticket prices may mean that the event can longer be accessed by them."

Asked by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about changes to Godiva Festival, council officer Phil Helm said it costs over a million pounds per year to put on.

"The actual event costs over a million to put on, so we already get a little bit of income from prices already and some of the contracts we have to provide food and drink and things like that," he said.

"But there is still a council subsidy of about £300,000 and this would inevitably look at that.

"It's a really good event, a marquee event for the city, and we'd like to think that we could attract some sponsorship for that.

"So we'll certainly go down those lines first. But clearly pricing would have to be part of the equation."

Asked if they considered not putting the festival on, Cllr Richard Brown said: "No we didn't.

"I think it's a fundamental part of Coventry, it's part of the heritage, the culture.

"I think, well a lot of the feedback we've had is that the pricing is pretty good still compared to what people pay for other concerts and events around the country."

He added: "We've had a pretty horrible time haven't we. We've had 13 years of austerity, we've had all that row about Brexit, we've had Covid, we've had wars going off everywhere, we've had a cost of living crisis.

"People need a bit of culture and an event like this to be able to go and enjoy themselves and let off some steam."