After about 500 people attended the first Powell River Blues Festival last year, the Blues Festival Society has had a busy year spreading its love of music through charity work.
The organization is a non-profit one. Any profit it makes goes back into the next Blues Festival and for any charity work it does.
Debbie Dee, treasurer of the society, said it is going to do some education around the school district about the music industry. “We wanted to give back to the community and we thought the best way to do that would be through the music because we are a music event,” she said. “Our charity work is going to be with youth. We’re going to go in and do some education around careers in the music industry; not only involving being on stage, but also being behind the scenes in production and lighting and sound and tech. We’re going to get artists in residence to come and do workshops for free with some of the kids and also in the community.”
Dee said the society has been talking to Jim Palm, a career counsellor at Brooks Secondary School, about the potentials. “We chatted just at the executive level. We haven’t talked to any of the music teachers themselves yet. We’ll chat with the teachers that are at the school now. We’ll go into not only the music classes but the whole school. There’s also the business side of the music industry. That’s what we want the kids to realize. If they want a career in music they don’t have to be on stage.”
As part of the society’s other charity work, Dee explained it is also participating with the Model Community Project for Persons with Disabilities this year. The disability sport club will be at the festival with wheelchairs and basketball hoops. The Raven’s Wheelchair Basketball team will conduct demonstrations and invite the public to give the sport a try. There will also be contests and giveaways.
Beyond charity work there is also all the behind the scenes work going into making the blues festival a success again at the beginning of June.
Dee said planning for the next festival starts just a couple of months after one ends. “We have a post-festival meeting—our debriefing and what worked and what didn’t, what can we do better. We do that in July. We take August off and we start our monthly meetings in September and pretty much by the end of November we’ve got the lineup ready for the next year and we have our stocking stuffer early bird tickets on sale for Christmas. It just goes from there.”
Everyone is a volunteer in the society. Dee explained the only person who makes money is the society’s sponsorship person, Tara Adams, who receives a 10 per cent commission on the sponsors she secures for the festival.
Altogether, Dee said the society has about 50 volunteers. “Everybody gets out there and has a lot of fun. We try to involve as much of the community as we can and of course our volunteers are the backbone of everything so we have a lot of volunteers coming out now. Anything from working security to the gate to the merchandise booth, to the cleanup. We have a green team for recycling and a blue team for garbage. Search and rescue come and there is overnight security. We try to include a whole diverse section of the community.”
This year’s target attendance is 1,000 people, Dee said. She added the whole thing was inspired by one comment. “Someone said ‘hey we should have a blues festival in Powell River’ and we all went ‘yes, let’s do it.’ So three or four of us got together and we recruited others for the committee. There was about 10 of us on the committee, three from out of town and the rest of us are from Vancouver.”
Jack Barr is the president of the society and is from Vancouver. He is also president of Powell River Chamber of Commerce. Dee said he has “a lot of investments and interest in Powell River so he is up here almost weekly.” Adam Tanner is the society’s tech person, who created the website and does much of the computer work. Steve Kozak, who is immersed in the Vancouver blues music scene, is music director.
Dee said, in spite of having less people attend than they estimated, last year’s festival went just as planned. “The spot was beautiful, the setup was wonderful, the lineup was great, the weather was fantastic. We didn’t have the numbers we thought we would but for the ones who were there, they’re all coming back this year and bringing a friend. We sold just an incredible number of tickets to people from out of town. That’s good for our local economy because we have about 300 people who have come in already and they’re going to be booking hotel rooms and staying in campsites.”
The festival runs from June 1 to 3. A weekend pass is $120. Single tickets are $30 for Friday, $70 for Saturday and $50 for Sunday. They are available at Powell River Town Centre Mall office or the chamber of commerce. For more information, readers can visit the society's website.
