Sled Island weathers the downturn
This year’s festival won’t use Olympic Plaza, but promises wide range of acts
“Is this going to be quiet enough?”
Maud Salvi has made herself comfortable on a second-hand sofa in the basement offices of the Sled Island Music Festival in Mission.
It is most likely the quietest spot in the room, despite being surrounded by ringing phones, animated conversations and the constant clicking of several laptop keyboards.
In a way, not much has changed since the first few festivals were organized from the living room of founder Zak Pashak’s Sunalta home.
There is still that scrappy DIY attitude, although these days Sled Island employs three full-time staff, as well as more paid contract employees.
The 450 Sled Island volunteers also play a crucial role in keeping the festival running smoothly, as they did during the inaugural festival more than a decade ago.
“We simply could not pull it off without them,” Salvi says.
“Some help us year-round by working at various fundraising events, being part of programming committees or putting up posters. During the festival they basically run the shows at all of our venues and events. They are our eyes and ears, keep us updated on how things are going constantly.”
Now in its 11th year, Sled Island is considered one of the better independent music and arts festivals in Canada. Its success has inspired the creation of similar music fests in Western Canada, including Up + Downtown in Edmonton and Rifflandia in Victoria, B.C. But Sled has also faced some challenges during the past few years, starting with the cancellation of the entire festival due to the 2013 floods.
Pass holders were given the choice to get a refund or donate the money to Sled Island to help recoup costs.
“We had incredible support,” says Salvi, adding that the festival was able to get mostly back on track relatively quickly.
“I think it’s part of the ongoing relationship we have with not only our audience but our artists and our partners.”
Unfortunately, Alberta’s economic downturn that followed has not been easy on Sled Island, and this year the festival made the difficult decision not to use Olympic Plaza as one of its main venues.
“It’s a really big site and it costs a lot of money to organize an event there and to get artists who are large enough to fill that kind of space,” explains Salvi.
“At the end of the day, between those costs and the uncertainty linked to the weather, it felt like it wasn’t worth it and it wasn’t worth taking that much of a risk.
“We felt we could keep the same level of artists and level of programming just by adding more shows in bigger venues.
“We’re making it up by doing three shows at The Palace Theatre and an extra show at Central United Church. Plus, we’re doing more shows at the National Music Centre than we didn’t do last year.”
More than 250 acts are lined up for this year’s edition of Sled Island, including guest curator Flying Lotus, California rapper and producer DJ Quik, quirky Japanese pop-punk trio Shonen Knife, indie rock darlings Wavves, Massachusetts hardcore veterans Converge, Tommy Stinson-led rockers Bash & Pop and lo-fi folk singer Katie Crutchfield, a.k.a. Waxahatchee.
The impressively wide range of international acts is complemented by dozens of excellent Canadian and local artists.
“Some people assume that it’s just for people who ‘ know’ music,’ ” Salvi says.
“The way we look at it is that we’re a festival to discover music. Some may have pre-existing knowledge of the bands playing, but even these people probably don’t know a lot of the lineup.
“Even the programmers haven’t heard all the bands. We get suggestions from people in the office and our guest curator’s suggestions. We’re really trying to make Sled Island an experience to discover and that it really doesn’t matter if you don’t know the artist.”
In addition to the music, Sled Island programs art exhibits, sponsored by the Alberta College of Art & Design, as well as film and comedy components.
This year’s comedy lineup includes Conan O’Brien writer and former Calgarian Levi MacDougall, transgender comedian Tranna Wintour and Toronto-based standup Nour Hadidi.
“We feel like we’re at this sweet spot, where people have a lot of options but it’s also not too overwhelming,” Salvi says.
“If you play your cards right, you can see a lot of things.”
The 2017 Sled Island Music & Arts Festival kicks off June 21 and runs through June 25 at various venues in central Calgary.