ELORA – Riverfest Elora brings about 5,000 people to Bissell Park here every summer.
This year it’s from Aug. 18 to 20, and it’s the festival’s 13th year, or “Lucky 13” as organizers are saying.
Headlining performers are The Reklaws on Friday, Metric on Saturday, and Feist on Sunday.
The Reklaws are from Cambridge and are the festival’s first country headliner, said executive and artistic director Spencer Shewen.
Other genres include rock, pop, hip-hop, ska, and electronic dance music.
“We don’t really exclude” any genres, Shewen said in a phone interview with the Advertiser.
He noted the reception to the lineup, released on April 19, has been “heartwarming,” and “everybody seems really happy.”
Shewen added festival organizers are “excited to bring Riverfest back to the community for another year.”
Reduced hours
There will be 47 performers, “less than previous years” because festival hours have been reduced.
After receiving feedback from surveys, organizers “decided to open the gates a little bit later on Saturday and Sunday,” and finish the festival an hour early on Sunday.
Gates will open at 1:30pm instead of 11:30am on Saturday and Sunday, and the festival will end around 10pm instead of 11pm on Sunday night.
“We noticed people weren’t coming in until about 2pm anyways,” and the later start gives the Riverfest team “more time to reset the park,” Shewen said.
He noted the decision to end earlier was “for our neighbours too, to give them that extra hour on Sunday night.”
The reduced hours mean “one less band per stage per day,” he noted.
The other change to the festival this year is an added “shuttle bus to Guelph Lake Conservation Area, so people can camp there as well, because the Elora Gorge sells out every year,” Shewen said.
Local performers
All but two of the performers are Canadian, with many local to Wellington County, Guelph and the Waterloo Region.
Elora artists include the Boo Radley Project, the Bearskins, Jiggity James, Adrian Jones, and the Rivercital from students at Adrian Jones’ music school.
Shewen said the Rivercital (from 3 to 5pm in the tent stage on Friday) is “something we do for the community, so the kids can play on the big stage that the bigger bands get to play on.”
Other performers from Centre Wellington include the Shawn Connerys, Peter Piper, and Anna Paddock and the Lay Awakes, including Paddock’s husband, Fergus native and Paralympian basketball star Patrick Anderson.
Returning performers
Returning artists include Metric, who Shewen said is “coming back for the first time since 2015,” when the rock band headlined one of the busiest days in the festival’s history.
The Darcys are “coming back Sunday night for a rap party at the Legion,” Shewen said, noting the after party is free for volunteers.
Skye Wallace, “an amazing Canadian rock artist from Toronto,” is coming back, too, performing in the Koop tent on Sunday at 4:20pm, he added.
Emerging performers
Shewen said there are many emerging artists performing, including CJ Wiley, an “amazing country artist from Toronto” and Rêve, who recently won a Juno for dance recording of the year.
Charlotte Cardin of Montreal, who is performing on Sunday, won four Junos in 2022: best album, single, artist, and pop album of the year.
“She’s amazing,” Shewen said.
He also noted, Talk, whose song Run Away To Mars has gone basically viral all across North America,” will perform on the main stage on Saturday at 5:40pm.
Tickets, volunteer opportunities
Tickets can be purchased from the Riverfest website at https://riverfestelora.frontgatetickets.com.
Weekend passes are currently available for $150, but the price will go up to $165 on May 1.
Children 12 and under can attend the festival for free if accompanied by an adult.
Volunteer applications are also up on the Riverfest website at https://riverfestelora.com/volunteer/.
Riverfest volunteers attend the festival for free, and work between 10 and 12 hours over the weekend, “depending on which crew they are on,” Shewen said.
“We have over 500 volunteers putting this thing on, and they do an amazing job every year,” he said, noting he hears from artists and agents “how amazing our team is and how we put on a world-class event.”
There is no minimum age for volunteers, but youth under 15 must be accompanied by an adult while volunteering.
Volunteers include “about 75 lead volunteers that put in countless hours over the festival season,” Shewen added, and “without them we would be lost.”
He said everyone comes together to create “something we can all be proud of.”
‘Sense of community’
“It’s really the sense of community” that makes Riverfest different from other festivals, Shewen said.
“People come to the festival and feel like they can be themselves.”
He added the “artistic line up” makes it unique too, with mostly upbeat bands that create a “party-fun atmosphere.
“The other thing that sets us apart from a lot of different festivals is it’s almost like a big city lineup in a rural community.”
The “beautiful setting” of the village of Elora makes Riverfest stand out too, Shewen said, noting “Elora and Centre Wellington are as much a part of the festival as everything inside of the park.”
He said organizers encourage attendees to “leave the festival grounds” to go out for a coffee and explore the area.
Shewen said “everyone that puts on the festival lives and works in the community” and “cares about Centre Wellington and doing the best that we can for the community.
“We do it for the town and for the locals as much as we do it for people coming from out of town,” he added, and “we are here because of the community.”
