Music festivals offer unique opportunities and challenges to communities in the region. Challenges include everything from recruiting and managing volunteers to ensuring enough accommodations for the influx of festival-goers. Grants that organizations can apply for year-after-year are ideal for growing community capacity and ensures that organizers can focus more on providing excellent experiences for locals, visitors and artists.
Edge of the World Music Festival in Haida Gwaii has been around since the 1970s, putting a spotlight on the beautiful surroundings, unique culture and fantastic music. Scott Marsden, of Edge of the World Music Festival Society, put a lot of effort into developing a series of workshops and is already looking forward to applying to the program again next year. This is the first time the festival has hosted workshops.
“Northern Development’s grant provided us the opportunity to host workshops during the festival. These ranged from yoga for adults and kids, beat-making, and even Northern and Southern Haida dialects. The funding allowed us to offer honourariums to instructors and purchase supplies. The workshops were incredibly popular with more than 300 people attending workshops over the two days. These workshops allowed festival goers, both from Haida Gwaii and beyond, to learn new unique skills. Investing in our festival is an investment in our community, as festival attendees frequent B&B’s, hotels and cafes near the festival grounds as well as local vendors on the festival grounds. Next year, we hope to expand the workshop programming. We will definitely be applying to the program next year.”
In 2016, ArtsWells had 2,500 attendees (with 2,000 in 2015 ). Wells has a population of approximately 250. The festival showcases the area, leveraging Wells’ unique buildings and history. Since the festival presents a broad interpretation of the arts, it has helped brand Wells and Barkerville as a centre for artists and artistic endeavours. David Jacob Harder of Island Mountain Arts Society was pleased with how the grant funding allowed the festival to advance on the technical side.
“The grant we received from Northern Development was put to good use in updating our sound equipment and other technical infrastructure. We had people come to us to say that the sound quality this year was the best year yet, which is absolutely fantastic. The Fabulous Festivals and Events program afforded us the ability to address technical issues from the past to put on our best festival yet!”
The fact that festival organizers can apply every year means that their events can count on continued support for years to come.
MoM Festival (formerly ‘Music on the Mountain Festival” in an annual three-day music and arts festival hosted in Fort St. James, B.C.
Chris Blois of Bulkley Valley Folk Music Society was thrilled that the grant funding can continue to support the Midsummer Music Festival in Smithers.
“The Bulkley Valley Folk Music Society is extremely grateful for the support from the Northern Development. As a non-profit society, the extent to which we are able to fulfil our mandate relies heavily on funding opportunities. The Fabulous Festivals and Events program provides this support to communities in the north. Northern Development is allowing us to continue to provide for our community.”
