RBC Bluesfest and the National Arts Centre (NAC) are bringing live, drive-in concerts to Ottawa in light of COVID-19 performance cancellations sweeping the Canadian music industry.
The #CanadaPerforms drive-in festival will be held over two weekends—July 31 to Aug. 1 and Aug. 7 to 8—at the Place des Festivals Zibi. The site carries great importance for Algonquin Anishinabe and Indigenous peoples and is being prepared in collaboration with the Algonquin Nation.
Concert-goers will be able to drive-in and watch live performances while maintaining social distancing. Attendance will be limited to 500 vehicles, but the concerts will also be livestreamed parallel to the on-site experience thanks to the NAC and its #CanadaPerforms livestream initiative with Facebook Canada.
The #CanadaPerforms initiative emerged as an emergency relief fund which initially helped ease the financial strain of the pandemic for 700 Canadian artists and published authors. The two-year project was developed through a partnership between the NAC and Facebook Canada to explore the future of digital engagement and livestreaming in the performing arts.
“Overall, COVID-19 has devastated the whole live music scene across the world,” Bluesfest executive director Mark Monahan said. “It’s really an unprecedented event which we have never seen before and may never again.”
“This tragic situation has forced us to reinvent ourselves and may change the business for the better in the future,” Monahan said. “We’re trying to present some hope in a pretty demoralizing environment, and we’re also trying to be inventive in how we can still continue to present music and also create work for others in the industry.”
NAC executive producer Heather Gibson said that the pandemic requires all levels of the music industry to reconsider the purposes of social media and live streaming not only as a marketing tool, but as an actual revenue structure.
“We found early on that the audience and the artist were talking to each other and the audience was speaking to themselves and that was the key thing which made live streaming different than a recording,” Gibson said.
“It became very evident early on that the point of livestreaming was community, engagement, and connection,” she added.
Gibson, who curated the event, said programming performance line-ups that are representative of the country is one way to give opportunities to underrepresented Canadian talents.
“Our partnership with the NAC really was founded on the same principle that we have to have some broad-based representation diversity, different genres of music, and this was really the basis of our planning,” she said.
Gibson added that in light of the global traction the Black Lives Matter movement gained in recent months, the diversity of the lineup is something to celebrate.
“Dramatic events have happened in the last month or two that have really shown a real focus, a microscope on these issues,” she said. “So I think we’re really proud of the fact that we have an all-Canadian, but very diverse lineup.”
“We live in a diverse country with many unique people, styles, cultures, art, music, language and it’s always great to see artists authentically express themselves,” Ashen said. “It’s more meaningful, I’ve seen the way it touches people.”
Ashen said that ultimately the group is excited to share their music with an audience and hopes to build bridges between people of all different backgrounds.
“Audiences can have the opportunity to hear what some of the more marginalized artists are up to,” Ashen said. “Who knows, they might fall in love with our sounds and develop love for our culture.”
#CanadaPerforms at RBC Bluesfest drive-in schedule:
July 31: Marie-Mai, Donovan Woods and The Opposition, Neon Dreams, Opening Address, Terra Lightfoot, Julian Taylor, Kellylee Evans
Aug.1: Sam Roberts Band, Shad, Haviah Mighty, LeFLOFRANCO, Bboyizm, Nambi & The Rhythm
Aug. 7: Patrick Watson, Basia Bulat, Zaki Ibrahim, Asuquomo, Silla and Rise, Geneviève et Alain
Aug. 8: Tim Hicks, Kira Isabella, Chris Labelle, Ryan Langdon, Lyle Odjick & The Northern Steam, Amanda Rheaume
Tickets available at https://canadaperforms.ottawabluesfest.ca/tickets/
In a previous version of this article, Mark Monahan’s name was misspelt. The Charlatan regrets the error.
Featured image provided by Bluesfest media team.
