New Ontario music festival booking ‘biggest performers in world right now’

TORONTO – Organizers of a new music festival hoping to set up camp near Toronto for the foreseeable future say they’ve already booked some of the world’s biggest acts for the inaugural edition this July.

So far, promoters are mum on the name of the multi-genre festival.

They’ll only disclose that the July 24-26 bash at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds will share the camping format popularized by good-vibe Tennessee institution Bonnaroo (whose American promoter AC Entertainment is collaborating with Canada’s Republic Live to put on the new event).

But they’re confident that the lineup, when finally announced, will tempt music fans from around the country — and beyond — to pack a bag for little Oro-Medonte, Ont., about 130 kilometres north of Toronto.

“I can comfortably say (the headliners) will be the biggest performers in the world right now — which is exciting to be able to say and not feel like you’re exaggerating,” enthused Republic Live executive director Shannon McNevan, whose company already produces the annual country jamboree Boots and Hearts.

“At first when we said we wanted (Boots and Hearts) to be an international destination for country music, everyone kind of laughed: ‘We’re talking about Bowmanville (Ontario), guys.’ But in the end we had six foreign countries, 26 states and every province buy tickets for Boots and Hearts.

“I think there’s a much greater opportunity with this kind of festival to attract people from all around the world.”

McNevan promises that in the coming weeks the festival will unveil its name and begin unspooling its lineup.

He will say that while the Burl’s Creek venue could handle as many as 80,000 people, organizers are hoping to draw an audience closer to the 40,000 range for the festival’s debut.

As far as the type of music on offer on the festival’s four stages, no one will say much yet.

“For lack of a better way to say it, we’re just after music lovers,” McNevan said.

“We’re not trying to be a jam band festival and we’re not trying to be a taste of the moment festival where we just have all the latest pop artists and stuff that’s exciting right now.”

Added Ashley Capp, CEO of AC Entertainment and co-founder of Bonnaroo: “It’s going to be multi-genre. There’ll be lots of different types of music represented.”

The Toronto area hasn’t always been a hospitable climate for music festivals, particularly broadly focused pan-genre affairs (Drake’s OVO Fest is a fever dream for hip-hop fans, while the Veld and Digital Dreams shows draw droves of dancers).

Recent years have seen the birth and death of Toronto-area festivals including Virgin Fest, Rogers Picnic, Heavy T.O., and the All Caps Festival.

McNevan, from Peterborough, Ont., has performed his own autopsies on those bygone summer festivals.

The difference between his upcoming festival and those failed Toronto productions lies mainly in the camping element, he said.

“I really believe that camping differentiator, it’s everything to me,” McNevan insisted. “It changes the entire experience. It makes it so immersive. It really creates that community that you don’t always get.

“When you have that many people in one place for the same reason, totally uninhibited, there’s something about that that is different,” he added.

“That’s what we didn’t see in this market — that world-class camping element, where it doesn’t feel like a crazy out-of-control Woodstock, it feels for some reason that you care how every piece of that grounds looks, even though you just have your one area of campsite for a weekend.”

The inspiration for his festivals came from a transformative trip to Bonnaroo in 2011.

He co-founded Boots and Hearts the next year — and that fest has drawn stars Carrie Underwood, Lionel Richie, Sheryl Crow, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton.

He continued attending Bonnaroo and remained determined to bring a similar multi-genre experience to the Toronto area.

Coincidentally, details about the new festival leaked Tuesday just as the popular Coachella fest announced its own lineup, headlined by AC/DC and Toronto’s own Drake.

That Indio, Calif., gathering is a major tourist attraction, as is Capps’s Bonnaroo. Ultimately, organizers of the new Ontario festival believe their still-nameless bash will be a similarly alluring draw.

“Our challenge in Toronto is going to be to establish that festival as one of the great festivals in the world, and I think we’re going to be able to do that,” Capps said.

“I think we all hope to create an event that people will come from all over the world to Toronto to experience. … I believe this festival will become a destination festival in its own right.”

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