The seventh annual Riverfest Elora music festival was a success, despite torrential rain last Friday morning.
Riverfest Elora director Shawn Watters explained, “It was a little bit tense there, but by (2pm) things sort of broke and we managed to … get things going and obviously the weather was fantastic for the entire weekend so the festival gods looked down on us and said, ‘okay we’re just fooling with you but don’t ever think of yourself as bigger than the weather.’”
Watters said the festival, which ran from Aug. 14 to 16 at Bissell Park, saw crowds comparable to last year, with 9,000 to 11,000 attendees for Friday and Saturday.
However, this year the festival also offered a Sunday program for the first time and ticket sales were strong, shooting the overall attendance beyond last year’s total.
Watters explained the programming was set so that Sunday would have a relaxed feel, compared to the rock and roll and big stadium atmosphere of Friday and Saturday, which featured headliners Sam Roberts Band and Metric respectively.
Sunday’s closing act was Bruce Cockburn, “which just set a real nice tone for the whole event,” Watters said. “And obviously he’s a Canadian icon, musical icon and he really was the original Canadian indie guy, so a lot of folks who are indie artists today can thank him.”
Another addition to the festival was a smaller, more intimate stage behind the main two stages.
“People loved it,” Watters said. “I think it was the intimacy they liked and it was just the vibe there was totally different and it’s also in a different part of the park, so if you … wanted to get away from folks it was a good area to just sort of sit on the grass and chill and then obviously … there was a mixed bag of acts there.”
Audiences at that stage were treated to performances by Tim Kingsbury of Arcade Fire and Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club, to name a couple.
Watters said that overall, the festival was well received by the community.
“Thirty-five to 38 per cent of our traffic that comes to Riverfest comes from out of town, especially Toronto, and so we’re exposing … all the good things and the premise of Riverfest is really a microcosm of our community, that being Elora and Fergus, and all the values that we have here in terms of the arts culture and just the beauty of it and all that,” he explained. “We’re a very welcoming community and this is just a reflection of that.”
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