VICTORIA — A music festival on Vancouver Island is taking a one-year break, but organizers are confident the music will resume in 2019.
Tall Tree Music Festival co-founder and director Mike Hann blames the low Canadian dollar and an oversaturated concert market for the hiatus.
He says the Tall Tree Festival has been attracting fans to the Port Renfrew area for the last eight years but has yet to turn a profit, even though it is almost entirely organized and run by volunteers.
He calls the decision "the most responsible way forward" so the festival, which attracts about 2,000 people, can make a comeback in 2019.
Canadian music festivals have faced significant challenges in recent years, in part because acts are booked and paid in American dollars and a sliding Canadian dollar can add as much as 40 per cent to costs on this side of the border.
The Pemberton Music Festival was cancelled this year and its organizers declared bankruptcy while the Rock the Shores festival in suburban Victoria was called off this year though producers are confident the three-day event will return in 2018.
Hann says the independent Tall Tree festival, which is not affiliated with large, U.S.-based festival producers such as Huka Entertainment or Live Nation Entertainment, had to regroup in the face of an already tough climate for Canadian festivals, but he's not giving up.
"My head is being held really high today. And there's been a huge outpouring of love and admiration for the festival and the event, and the community that surrounds it," he says.
A note on Tall Tree's website says the group's much smaller winter event, the Song and Surf Music Festival is slated to mark its 10th anniversary on the beaches of Port Renfrew over the 2018 Family Day long weekend in February.
