FLOURISH Festival Hopes To Welcome Back Audiences In June
FREDERICTON – The FLOURISH Festival will feature 50 artists and musicians at venues across the city from June 10-13. While the team is excited to bring the festival to the city, they’re remaining cautious of public health protocols.
Co-organizer Jane Blanchard says that while the festival will not be operating at the same capacity it did pre-pandemic, she hopes is to bring people to the venues and into the community to boost the city’s economy.
“It’s really huge to have these events throughout the year. We’re taking these different funding streams from the provincial and federal government and injecting it right into the city,” said Blanchard.
The FLOURISH Festival will occupy venues like the Cap and the Charlotte Street Art Centre. Usually, the festival occupies more venues across the city.
This year will be more restrictive of guests due to pandemic health concerns, but Blanchard says they will try to fit in as many guests into venues as they can according to public health guidelines.
“Not only are we paying artists, bands, and musicians, but we’re also ensuring that business is flowing into places like the Cap and the Art Centre and then that also funnels out to the food trucks, restaurants, and the galleries,” said Blanchard.
In 2020, most of the festival’s performances happened exclusively online, so the team is looking forward to bring people back into venues.
“In 2020, we really stripped back and only did virtual performances and were into murals and things that didn’t require crowds to gather at once,” Blanchard said. “This year, it’s more of a hybrid. I’m hoping if things stay the same in New Brunswick, we will be able to present live shows but with limited audiences.”
The festival consists of a combination of music, art, installations, workshops, poetry in more. This year’s festival will include over 50 artists including Motherhood, Wolf Castle, Century Egg, Eliz Niemi, and LXVNDR.
While most artists are local to the Atlantic region, there will be select digital performances from performers from outside of the Maritimes.
The festival has been a challenge to plan, knowing that the province’s situation could change in an instant and shift to more restrictive measures. But, Blanchard says their lessons learned from last year’s online edition will help them with whatever obstacles may come the FLOURISH Festival’s way.
“I’m really grateful and thankful we decided to do something last year when a lot of festivals canceled. We decided to try the digital thing, see what works, see what doesn’t work,” she said.
“So now, we’re going into this year as if anything can happen. All artists know that it might be the day before the event takes place and we’re back in red zone. That’s fine. We’ll do something digital. You just have to flexible because you can’t control it.”