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Music festival making big changes

Submitted by Pat Carrie Smith for the Edge of the World Music Festival Society-2007 is shaping up to be a year of big change for the music festival. Lots of activity has followed a very successful 2006 festival. First, the festival society will be submitting a proposal to BC Parks for permission to hold the music festival in 2007 on the Fall Fairgrounds. We are excited about the possibility of using the beautiful, sheltered grounds on the edge of the Tlell River.
A second big change is the date of the festival. We have voted to move the festival from our recently traditional July weekend to the second weekend of August, which for 2007 is August 10, 11 and 12. There is good evidence that drier weather can be expected on the August dates, and the music festival could become the final event in our busy islands summer schedule of activities.
It doesn't stop there! We have changed our structure to allow the work of finding musical groups to begin a month after the festival ends each year. Our new artistic director, Keith Alexander, is working with his newly-formed performers committee to search for candidates for 2007. With such a head start, we hope to host some awesome headliner and key off-island talent. Anyone who would like to help with that, contact Keith at k2alex@hgqci.org.
The festival has also made big changes to our food concessions. Our hospitality tent will be structured as a food serving line and the food will be provided only at certain meal time hours. Hospitality will only be available for performers and for hard-core, on-site volunteers. Other volunteers and families of performers will be able to sample our vendors' booths. The festival concession window has been deleted; to replace it, the festival society will make arrangements with vendors to provide coffee, tea, water, soft drinks, and popcorn for festival customers and volunteers.
Festival 2007 is going to feel like an entirely new event! If you want to be a part of it all, come to our annual general meeting on Oct. 1 at 2 pm in the Eric Ross Room, Queen Charlotte, to see if there is something you would be interested in. Some key areas of the festival will be structured in committees this year, to try to avoid the burnout that occurs when one or two individuals have the entire load. The previous big change in the festival's 30-year history was the move to Tlell in 1999 - help us create a 2007 festival with a new look!