Halifax Music Fest head hopes festival keeps concertgoers closer to home

The head of a Halifax company co-organizing a three-day music festival that is expected to attract tens of thousands of people this weekend to the Garrison Grounds hopes it means people can stay closer to home for shows, rather than hop on a plane and head out of province.

Louis Thomas, president of Sonic Concerts Limited, said with a growing population in the city, it's a good time to put on a large-scale, multi-day concert.

"Not only do we feel that's an opportunity, we feel it's important to provide things for the citizens to do as well ... this is a long term sort of process," he said. "It's not like one and done here, hopefully."

Thomas said the last time Sonic put on a multi-day event comparable to this weekend's Halifax Music Fest was its 2012 Summersonic event, although that was smaller in scope.

This weekend's festival features four bands a day. The headliners are Nickelback on Friday, Lenny Kravitz on Saturday and The Killers on Sunday.

On Thursday afternoon, a couple hundred workers were on site doing prep work for the festival, along with lots of heavy machinery. Thomas said the crews are all local.

"This is genuine," he said. "We're doing this because we live here and we want this to succeed."

Thomas said that while the Garrison Grounds is being set up to allow for a capacity of 30,000 people per show, as many as 22,000 people are expected each day.

In choosing a rock music festival, Thomas said he didn't want to compete with existing festivals in Atlantic Canada, such as country ones like the Cavendish Beach Music Festival in P.E.I. or the YQM Country Fest in Dieppe, N.B.

The decision to open the festival doors at 4 p.m. AT each day was deliberate, said Thomas. He hopes attendees grab lunch in the downtown beforehand and then go out afterwards to support businesses in the downtown area.

Weather forecast

After a few days of blistering heat, temperatures will cool this weekend, said CBC metorologist Ryan Snoddon. While Friday night should see mild temperatures and light winds, Saturday is looking dicier.

"Concertgoers should prepare for wet weather as it appears we'll see showers arriving throughout the afternoon and evening," he said.

"Steadier rain looks more likely late evening, overnight and into early Sunday, however, as the system pulls away the rain will taper to showers throughout the day."

Snoddon said there's a slight risk of a few lingering showers for Sunday evening's show.

Appeal to artists

Thomas said he thinks the downtown setting will be attractive to artists because it means they won't have to travel for hours after getting off an airplane, or go very long from their hotel to the venue on the day of the show.

"We've obviously got lots of transport lined up, but as soon as everyone realizes, 'Oh, it's right there,' you know, they [will] walk," he said.

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