READY TO PARTY
Event has grown from a humble start
Phoebe Maurice applies festival makeup to Katelyn Fournier to become fully prepared to enjoy the Lethbridge Electronic Music Festival in Galt Gardens Saturday afternoon.
Galt Gardens was taken over and transformed into a music lovers paradise Saturday for the largest electronic music festival in Southern Alberta. The seventh annual Lethbridge Electronic Music Festival (LEMF) started with humble beginnings in 2011, with a small community of participants, but has grown drastically in the last few years, bringing out around 5,000 people to festival grounds.
“It is pretty crazy to see how much it has grown over the years,” says David Fritz, president of the LEMF organizing committee. “When we started, we had 500 people here and we did not know that we would eventually have this big awesome event in Lethbridge.”
The day of LEMF was packed full of activities for all ages including three stages and 30 acts with a wide range of electronic music to listen to, artisan shopping, beer gardens, a kids zone and plenty of food trucks to fill the day.
The festival was created to provide the opportunity to people in Lethbridge and surrounding communities to experience the electronic music festival world, mingle within the community, and to bring more celebration to the downtown core.
“Our goal at LEMF is to provide a free not for profit event that gives families and those who may not usually attend electronic events, an opportunity to check the scene out,” says Fritz.
The family-friendly event is organized by a committee that spends the year planning the best event they can, with the help of a group of volunteers to make the show run smoothly.
“We very proud to be family-friendly and have an age range from children up through to seniors that come together to share a love of music,” says Fritz.
“We have a planning committee that works year-round on LEMF as well as throwing regular parties throughout the year. LEMF is a volunteer-driven event that requires over 40 people on the day of generously giving their time to help organize and run the event. It is truly by and for the community and we are very proud of that.”
This year’s festival featured not one, but five headliners from around the world, including Slynk from Australia, Wood n Soo from Canada, Joe Nice from the United States, as well as Cheshire and Sammy Senior from New Zealand.
The festival signed off for another year with the LEMF after-party to close another festival season. Every year the event grows bigger and the LEMF committee is already looking forward to begin planning next year’s event.