Canal Flats country music extravaganza will be the first festival in the Columbia Valley since 2019
By Steve Hubrecht
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In a sign that, as summer goes on, pre-COVID-19 pandemic norms are slowly returning, the valley’s first music festival in nearly two years is set for later this month.
Flats Fest, Canal Flats’s signature country music festival, is scheduled to go ahead on Saturday, Aug. 21, with a full lineup of top-notch talent.
The ongoing pandemic had thrown the arts and culture scene in the Columbia Valley into complete disarray since hitting the valley in March 2020, and the valley’s multiple vibrant music festivals have been either put on hold or drastically altered ever since.
The Edgewater-based Steamboat Mountain Music Festival went online in 2020 and this year chose to mark its 10th anniversary with a special double CD containing songs by many of the local musicians who have performed at Steamboat over the years. The Invermere Music Fest, the largest of the valley’s music festivals, was cancelled last year and this year. Flats Fest was put on hold last year, but because it typically falls later in the summer than the other music festivals (late August for Flats Fest, as compared with early July for Steamboat and early-to-mid August for the Invermere Music Fest) and because its relatively small scale (one day for Flats Fest as opposed to multiple days for Steamboat and Invermere Music Fest) makes it somewhat easier to pull together, meant that Flats Fest organizers kept holding out hope through the early summer that as pandemic restrictions continued to ease, Canal Flats might just see a live festival after all.
Those hopes came to fruition when, a few weeks ago, those involved with the festival decided to go ahead with it.
“We are squeezing it in at the last minute,” organizer Craig Moritz told the Pioneer. “We really weren’t sure, we took a bit of a gamble.”
Putting on a music festival during a pandemic (even one that appears to be winding down, at least in B.C.) is no small feat.
“It has actually been a challenge to throw it all together in such a short time. Hopefully we pull it off,” said Moritz. “It’s almost surreal. People sure seem to be looking forward to it. We’ve been starved for live music for so long. People also just seem eager to be able to get out and do something together.”
Bobby Wills is headlining, and other acts include Duane Steele, Karen Lee Batten, Doug Patriquin, Curtis Grambo, and Moritz himself.
The organizers worked together with the Canal Flats Community Society and any proceeds from the festival will go toward efforts to build a splash park in the village.
This year, aside from the normal main stage, the festival will also include a second stage featuring local Columbia Valley musicians.
“We are going to try it (the second stage) out this year, see how it goes,” said Moritz, adding Canal Flats is the perfect place for a country music festival, since “the surroundings are beautiful, the location (at the ball diamonds) is convenient for everybody to get to… it’s a great place to have it.”
Moritz said he grew up steeped in country music and part of the motivation for starting Flats Fest was “I just felt that was something that was missing in the valley, a country music festival, so that’s why the festival is focussed on country.”
The festival runs from noon until 11 p.m. There will be beer gardens and local vendors. The event will go ahead rain or shine, and kids 12 and under are free.
For more information or to buy tickets go to flatsfest.ca.
