FESTIVAL FORGES ON
Cathedral event goes digital
It takes a lot of work to put together a concert, but it takes even more work if that concert has to be pre-recorded by each band member individually and then edited together.
That’s what Jared Dormer and the other members of West of Mabou have discovered recently, as they prepared for this year’s Cathedral Village Arts Festival (CVAF), which runs May 18-23.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CVAF’S organizers decided to take the festival entirely digital so Regina residents could still enjoy the celebration of art and culture without breaking any restrictions.
Dormer, the band’s percussion player, said he and the other band members are grateful that the festival has found a way to continue and is still paying its performers, since the COVID -19 pandemic has been a tough time for musicians.
“We’ve had to cancel almost two months of shows,” said Dormer. “For (CVAF) to still want to put something on like this was great.”
West of Mabou has been preparing for their show at CVAF for months, but preparations for a pre-recorded concert — particularly one created when the group can’t meet together — have looked very different from that of a regular show.
One person started by recording their part of the music before passing off the recording to the next member. One at a time, the musicians layered their parts together until the songs were complete.
Figuring out the necessary technology and the home recording setups was a steep learning curve, but Dormer is happy to have all these skills if they want to try a similar project in the future.
“It was all brand new for us, so it was just a lot of Googling how to use imovie and Youtubing how to use different things because we had to figure it out on the fly,” he said.
“It was the first time for us to do something like this and it worked out better than expected.”
CVAF chair Jefferson Wourms said taking a massive outdoor festival and turning it into a unique, online experience was “quite the undertaking” — especially given that the bulk of the festival’s planning had been done with the expectation of it being like every other year.
“We had planned to proceed with a full and standard schedule.
Then we had to turn around and completely transform that into something we could produce and deliver online,” he said.
Hundreds of hours of committee member time later, Wourms said he is excited for the festival. The lineup of approximately 40 performances will be livestreamed on Facebook, Youtube and CVAF’S website simultaneously. Artists will also still be able to sell their wares through a new online store built into CVAF’S website.
Although organizing the festival this year became much more work than the committee had anticipated, Wourms said they felt it was important to give the community something to look forward to during this time of social isolation.
“We really wanted to maintain a positive thing for people,” he said. “The amount of community support that we’ve received and just the general interest in participation has just been amazing.”
Dormer said West of Mabou will be live in the chat section during their performance, answering questions from the audience and telling stories about some of the songs, which is something they wouldn’t be able to do during a regular performance.
West of Mabou’s half-hour concert will be livestreamed at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
For a full list of events and to purchase pieces from the artists or 50/50 tickets, visit cvaf.ca.