ROTARY FESTIVAL
– Going virtual this year
The Rotary Music Festival will be taking place this year, it will just look different.
While organizers had planned for an in-person festival for 2021, regulations in place since November meant that wouldn’t be possible.
But the festival is still working with more than 150 Hat musicians to keep the tradition alive. Each musicians will send in videotaped performances and will receive adjudication virtually.
“We were planning for a live festival and it really did look possible, but the health restrictions came in and we had to change our plans,” said executive director Delynne Lorentzen. “It was disappointing that we couldn’t go forward with our plan, but we understand the situation.
“We’ve put our energy into something more realistic and we’re happy with the outcome.”
With a fully-online show, organizers weren’t unsure of what response they would get.
“It’s been quite amazing to see,” said Lorentzen. “I think everyone just wants to do something, so seeing this many kids signing up is really incredible.
“We have over 500 entries, almost 600, and we have 152 participants. It’s way more than we were expecting.”
Since participants are sending videos of each performance in, Lorentzen will be creating one-hour YouTube playlists for Hatters to view.
The Rotary team will also be handing out plenty of scholarships during the festival.
Lorentzen says there is hopes to have live performances of some kind for the Rose Bowl and Stars of the Festival shows.
“They won’t be open to the public, but we still plan on having those be live performances,” she said. “We will live stream these and they will be happening in real time.
“All of the kids have a chance to perform in this and I know they’re all excited.”
The festival kicks off March 7. Follow along on the Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival Facebook and YouTube pages.