Shawn Hook performed at last year’s Desert Live Music Festival. The festival won’t be held this year. (Richard McGuire file photo)
There will not be a Desert Live Music Festival in Osoyoos this summer, but some key players in town are hoping an experienced music promoter will want to get involved and can organize a premier festival for the summer of 2016.
Mike Campol, the chair of the organizing committee that organized the inaugural Desert Live Music Festival last summer, and Gail Scott, managing director of Destination Osoyoos, both confirmed Monday that there won’t be a music festival in Osoyoos in 2015.
However, both remain confident that the inaugural festival generated enough interest and community support that an experienced music promoter will want to get involved and take on the challenge of bringing a successful event to one of B.C.’s premier tourist destinations in time for the summer of 2016.
Campol said once he made the decision to run for a position on Town of Osoyoos council and was elected last November, he quickly realized he would not be able to be involved in organizing a second Desert Live festival this year.
“I couldn’t be involved … if it meant spending any municipal funds for a second event,” he said. “We needed to find someone or a group of people with the time and willingness to put together something and considering the expenses involved, it became a very tough go.”
A decision has been made among those who gave up so much of their time over several months last year to organize the inaugural Desert Live festival that the best way to proceed is to bring in an experienced concert promoter or promotion company and see if there is interest in organizing a festival for the summer of 2016, said Campol.
“A decision was made to take the proper amount of time to find the right person to get things back on track,” he said. “There was some talk of putting together something on a smaller scale, but there was no time to apply for grants or to get proper sponsorship in place, so a decision was made to cancel the event for this year.”
Another scenario where a one-day “reggae festival on the beach” might quickly be organized was also discussed, but funding and lack of organizational concerns made it clear that wouldn’t work either, said Campol.
Campol said he would gladly have helped organize a second festival this year, but he had “no idea” he would be running to win a seat on town council when last year’s festival took place.
What he is willing to do, however, is use his many contacts in the music industry to try and find a music promoter who would be excited about bringing a bigger and better Desert Live festival to Osoyoos next summer.
Because the inaugural festival generated such positive response not only in Osoyoos, but also across the entire South Okanagan, and decent crowds showed up throughout the festival, Campol remains confident an experienced promoter will want to get involved.
Scott said many people in this community believe Destination Osoyoos would be responsible for organizing things like music festivals, but that’s not what the organization is about at all, she said.
“We are a marketing association … we don’t have the human resources or funding to organize things like music festivals,” she said. “That’s not what we do.”
Once the inaugural Desert Live festival was announced, Destination Osoyoos got involved and helped promote and market the event across the region and province and would do so in the future, but it will never be involved in organizing such an event, she said.
Scott agrees that the best recipe for success for an event like Desert Live is to get an experienced music promoter involved.
To run a successful music festival, you have to book numerous quality acts and those acts demand on being paid all or a large percentage of their fee up front, said Scott.
“There are huge costs involved in any festival event … and a lot of the money has to be available up front before the event,” she said. “That’s how it works.
“Music promoters who have been in the business a long time know this, but have the funds and knowledge to have everything in place.”
Scott agrees the relative success of the inaugural Desert Live festival should attract interest from numerous experienced festival promoters moving forward.
“A lot of great work was done organizing that first festival,” she said. “It didn’t make any money, but it also didn’t lose any, which is very encouraging for a first-time event. It drew solid crowds throughout and generated a lot of positive feedback.”
Destination Osoyoos would be more than willing to work with any concert promoter in marketing and promoting the return of Desert Live Music Festival in 2016, said Scott.
“Our job is to market the town and attract visitors … that’s what we do very well,” she said.
The whole idea behind the inaugural Desert Live festival was to bring a new event to Osoyoos that would bring more visitors to town between late June and the second week in July when the Calgary Stampede begins, she said.
Destination Osoyoos will be keeping a close tab on vacancy rates at local motels and hotels this summer and see if last year’s Desert Live made a significant impact on the local economy, she said.
Scott is convinced an experienced concert promoter will want to take advantage of the heavy influx of tourists who flock to Osoyoos each summer and organize a music event that can become a big success for many years to come.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
