Urban Vancouver

I've been reading The Corporation by Joel Bakan, which is part of One Book, One Vancouver, and this paragraph appears in the book (pp. 118-119) in the discussion of the strategies marketers use to target children to open up their parents' wallets:

The annual Vancouver Children's Festival was once a respite from commercialism. So I was taken aback when, on a recent visit to the festival with my son, we found ourselves in the middle of a mock Kia car dealership after entering the grounds through the main gate. Shiny new vehicles were seductively positioned on the grass, banners with Kia logos fluttered in the breeze, and chippy young Kia staff roamed the grounds giving away free stuff to kids. The festival had permitted the display in exchange for Kia's sponsorship dollars. My son wanted to play on the cars, and I had to pry him away so we could attend a concert by children's performer Raffi—a concert, it turned out, that would never happen. Raffi, appalled, he told me later, by "what appeared to be a car dealership" on the festival grounds, refused to play and withdrew from the festival. "I was completely floored by this corporate visibility, this ... gross commercialization," he said. "It was distressing to the max for me, and I didn't feel I could perform in that environment." So at my son's insistence we went back to the cars, where he nagged me persistently to buy him an SUV but settled for an inflatable dinosaur with a Kia logo on it.

Bit of a downer, I know, but I wonder how many other parents worry that the Children's festival should be about the kids having fun playing and being imaginative instead of being targetted by advertisements.