‘Shop Local, Rock Local’: Imperial, Local Promoter Stage Show To Boost Music Scene
SAINT JOHN – The local music festival Quality Block Party and Imperial Theatre are staging a double bill of live music this Saturday that will give performers a larger audience, a unique opportunity for local acts accustomed to playing smaller venues here.
Peter Rowan, Artist Manager at Peter Rowan Artist Management (PRAM), and Imperial Theatre Executive Director Angela Campbell recognized an opportunity to promote local artists who normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to perform on a mainstream platform.
“We don’t have the venues, we don’t have the media outlets, we don’t have radio that supports it,” said Rowan referring to the underrepresented but vibrant regional music community.
“All of these artists are all pretty active, but in the corners and the fringes,” he said.
Rowan shared Little Me Little You toured across the country and Europe but are know well known outside of their scene in their hometown.
“As a promoter, you’re putting together the package of the artists and figuring out how to promote them,” he said. “We have to go out and find our own networks – there’s a pretty substantial fan base for a lot of this music, you just don’t generally hear about it.”
The East Coast bubble gives promoters like Rowan and Atlantic Canadian musicians an advantage during Covid-19.
“I was talking to a friend of mine who books the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto and he was like, ‘You’re doing a show with 200 people!?,’ said Rowan. “They can’t even conceive of it, they’re so far away from that happening.”
He added that venues and festivals such as Area 506 have been making more of a conscious effort to book regional talent that was outside of the norm.
“People are starting to realize, ‘I can’t play Toronto, I can’t play Montreal so I don’t have to drive 1,000 kilometers to lose $500 – we can develop we can develop our own circuit here,'” said Rowan.
“It’s like people talk about shopping locally. This is the best way to shop locally if you support these shows and support these artists, you’re supporting local on a bunch of different levels. Not just the venues, not just the bands directly, but also the investment in our own intellectual property, this is music that’s made and created here.”
Campbell explains Quality Block Party is dedicated to serving a youth audience, an underserved local demographic for live entertainment.
“We were sitting in this amazing opportunity where we can completely reinvent ourselves and help a local organization, share the risk 50/50 and work with them in order to mount this show,” she said, adding it puts the theatre in touch with an audience they don’t have opportunity to work with often.
The Imperial Theatre will be open at one-third of its normal capacity, at 250-300 seats for Saturday’s live shows. Rowan worked with the Imperial Theater’s box office manager to create a booking system allowing for social distancing.
Both Campbell and Rowan confirmed there are plans to host more double-bill music events in November or December. Campbell added that the circumstances of the pandemic and reopening the Imperial gave them an opportunity to focus on looking and what they could be doing within their community give artists access to their professional expertise and connections.
“This is really a unique opportunity, and everybody’s stepped up to the plate and are really embracing this,” said Rowan. “I’m hopeful that people will recognize the uniqueness of this situation and how important it is – shop local, rock local.”