|
Successful Lighthouse Blues Festival and Art in the Park last weekend |
A&E To Comment on this article Click Here |
||||
 Ann Beverly-Foster (L) and Erin McCallum jam with their guitarist colleague at the TD Back Porch Blues stage Saturday afternoon (July 9) in Victoria Park | |||||
|
The Lighthouse Blues Festival, held July 8-9 in Lakeside Downtown Kincardine was a great success, says event producer Rick Clarke. The two-day event was held on two stages this year and attracted more than 900 Blues fans. New this year was the TD Back Porch Blues Stage Saturday afternoon in Victoria Park. A free stage, it featured mostly acoustic artists from the region and was opened with a unique Emerging Artists Workshop hosted by Erin McCallum. Also featured was the work of 17 local artists in an Art in the Park exhibit. “The addition of the free TD Back Porch Blues Stage is our attempt to bring the Blues festival experience to the broader community and was made possible with the generous support of TD Canada Trust and our other sponsors," says Clarke. "Our vision is to continue to have the festival continue to grow with similar opportunities in the downtown area so we become a truly community festival.” Headliners appeared on the myFM Mainstage at the Bruce Steakhouse. The festival featured internationally touring musicians as well as top national and regional acts. “By festival standards, we may still be small, this being only our second year, but we were still able to attract the attention of first-rate bands that will also be featured on the mainstages of much larger festivals like Ottawa, Montreal, London, Kitchener and Mount Tremblant this summer,” says Clarke. The event, with a playbill of more than 25 acts and top quality staging, lighting and sound, was expensive to mount but with the response of Blues fans from the region and local sponsorship, the festival was also a modest financial success. Final accounting is being done this week but Clarke expects that a donation to the Davidson Centre Revitalization project, the designated charity, will be made within a few weeks. “We were able to expand and grow the festival,
both in the number and quality of our artists because the local
business community came forward and supported the festival to a
greater extent this year," Clarke says. "Our increased sponsorship went immediately
back into the festival and demonstrates the great support our local
businesses have for our community and events."
Jane Rigby (R) of Grubby Paws in Kincardine chats with a fellow artisan
Melanie Milne (L) and Susan Hamilton display some of their students' artwork in the Hamilton & Milne Arts Academy. For more information contact them at 519-368-4170 or KincardineArts@gmail.com
|
 Ann Beverly-Foster sings the Blues Saturday afternoon at the Lighthouse Blues Festival  Isabella Lane (L), 6, and Jada Nicholson, 4, both of Kincardine check out the stained glass creations by Jane Caron and Ann Larocque of Kincardine at the Art in the Park Saturday in Victoria Park  Checking out the artwork by Sharon Pike The board of directors of the Lighthouse Blues Festival, an incorporated not-for-profit organization, will be meeting next week to close the books on this year’s festival and after a few weeks off, planning for the 2012 version will begin. Clarke says while most acts will not be signed until late spring, there are many details that actually have to start no later than this fall in order to be ready for the busy months immediately before the festival. “At this point, we are still undecided as to what shape the 2012 festival will take but certainly hope that with continued support from the community, the Lighthouse Blues Festival will grow and become a premier music experience every summer for Blues fans across the region," he says. Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
|
||||
|
 for
world news,
books, sports, movies ...Friday, July 15, 2011 |
||||
