TOP MIKE DEVLIN’S 20 ISLAND FESTIVALS
PLUS: TEA PARTY, ROBERT AMOS, AROUND TOWN
The narrow July-August window that used to account for festival season on Vancouver Island has grown into a four-month marathon covering every corner of the arts and culture community. Festival season has already begun, with two events — classic rock festival Laketown Rock and avant-garde amalgam Pretty Good Not Bad — off the books before June arrived. There are plenty more to come, from ones smaller in scale to others bigger in vision.
Some have fallen by the wayside since last year, from Rock of the Woods and the Victoria Buskers Festival to the Victoria Chalk Festival and Rock the Shores. But for every pin knocked down, there’s another put up in its place. And with festival fever at blistering levels these days, there’s clearly enough audience to go around.
“I think Victoria has become a completely different place,” said Atomique Productions co-founder Nick Blasko, who started the popular Rifflandia festival a decade ago. His company has grown in the time since (Atomique will also produce the Phillips Backyard Weekender, Car Free YYJ and Spirit of 150 Victoria this year) but so have the tastes of Victorians, he said. A new generation of festival fans has given rise to a wide range of music, theatre and art.
“You have so many more people living downtown and working downtown,” Blasko said. “The landscape is totally different.”
With more choices than minutes in a day, it would be impossible to provide a full accounting of the events happening this summer. With a path that stretches from Victoria and events such as the Vancouver Island Blues Bash (Sept. 2-4) to Ucluelet and the Otalith Festival (Aug. 23-24), the summer is all over the map. That’s a good thing.
But for those with less time to explore, the Times Colonist’s Top 20 — a cross-section of events that appeal to the widest audience imaginable — should come in handy.