Festivalgoers depressed by the cancellation of the Squamish Valley Music Festival may soon have a new Squamish-based annual festival to celebrate.
Representatives from the World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival presented to District of Squamish Tuesday night.
Tom Corbeth, head of WOMAD Canada, said the family-friendly festival has its sights set on Squamish for September of 2017.
“It is a world celebration of world music, arts and dance,” Corbeth explained.
British rock musician Peter Gabriel set up the festival about 34 years ago, and it now includes thousands of performers at festivals in several countries, Corbeth said.
New Zealand, Australia and Spain have hosted the festival for decades.
“It is a massive, global festival brand,” he said.
The festival would aim for 60,000 attendees over the weekend, but would not want to grow beyond that, Corbeth said.
Revenue from the three-day festival would total about $4 million, according to Corbeth, and 100 jobs would be created. “That includes semi-permanent and permanent staff,” he said.
First Nations are integral to the event, Corbeth said.
About three or four years ago, Corbeth said, festival organizers started to look for a suitable North American location to host the festival. They focused on B.C. for its “connection with First Nations,” Corbeth said. Vancouver and then Whistler were considered.
Whistler was taken out of the running with the recent announcement of the Whistler Blackcomb expansion, which will eat up the area that had been proposed to hold the event.
“It was roughly the same time we heard the Squamish Valley Music Festival had been cancelled,” he said. “We thought, ‘Well actually, that could be a good opportunity,’ so we started to focus on Squamish.”
Although the grounds layout and camping structure will echo that of the cancelled music festival, WOMAD has a much different operating model and philosophy, Corbeth stressed.
Musical acts at the global festival are not “A-listers,” Corbeth said. “That is not what we are about at all. We are about introducing different cultures and bringing them together.”
Corbeth said examples of possible acts would be throat singers from Siberia and lute players from Japan.
He also stressed the festival wants to fully integrate into the community utilizing local goods, services and businesses.
“We do not deal with major brands,” Corbeth said. “It is very, very small town. We look very much at what is local as far as wine and craft beer, for example.”
Traditionally WOMAD festivals have multiple stages, musical and dance acts, workshops and a global food village.
Organizers plan to engage with and incorporate Quest University into the festival, he said.
Corbeth said the experience in other communities is 65 per cent of attendees are local, 10 per cent are from across the host country, 10 per cent come from the west coast of the United States and 15 per cent are international visitors.
No entrance fee is charged for children under age 12, he added.
“I think it looks like a really exciting festival, really interesting and it fits into our vernacular very well,” said Mayor Patricia Heintzman.
Corbeth said he is going to continue to meet with district staff in the coming weeks to continue discussions.
Meanwhile, council officially terminated the festival licences of Squamish Valley Music Festival organizers Brand Live Promotions at the same meeting Tuesday night.
To learn more about the WOMAD festival, go to womad.org.
