Organizers for the Golden Sound Festival have announced this year’s lineup and with that it appears as though this summer will also mark the end of an era in the fest’s three year history.
If all goes according to plan, this summer will be the final block party, winter or summer, for the Golden Sound Festival, with organizers hoping to move the popular fest outdoors starting in 2016.
“We’ve always envisioned an outdoor festival…it’s kind of what we wanted for Golden,” said one of the festival’s organizers, Todd Menzies.
Organizers have yet to finalize where the outdoor festival might take place, but they are hoping to work with the Town to find a suitable location in the near future. One of the big benefits of moving things outdoors is the possibility to attract families, which obviously isn’t possible when hosting the event at bars downtown.
“You just love the vibes, you can throw out a blanket with the family and chill out. A lot of my personal friends have kids and what not now and we want them involved. We want them to be experiencing music and getting out,” Menzies said.
And this winter, instead of a night of music downtown at various venues, as has been the case in years past, organizers are planning to move the event to the Civic Centre and bring back a selection of popular artists from the festival’s past.
“After this festival we’ll have had over 75 bands come through…so we’re going to hand pick five or six of those bands and put on a ‘best of’ show,” Menzies explained.
For this year, the festival will move to a two-night format with a selection of bands playing on the Friday night (Aug. 21) and the rest of the lineup hitting the stage the following night.
Yukon Blonde, the festival’s top headliner, will perform on the first night.
“I’ve known the Yukon Blonde guys for quite a few years now…I brought them to Golden about three years ago for a ski hill closing on the release of their last album. They’ve been on hiatus and working on the new album ever since and with the new album coming out in June it was just perfect timing to bring them back through,” Menzies said of the hit indie band out of Kelowna.
The Matinee, The Wild! and Buckman Coe are among the festival’s other highlights.
Recently, Menzies, who now lives in Vancouver, has heard a lot of positive buzz from fellow artists and musicians about the Golden Sound Festival.
“A lot of these bands have come to me and said ‘hey, I hear what you’re doing in Golden and we want to be a part of it,’” Menzies said.
Early bird tickets for the two nights are on sale online at goldensoundfestival.com and will soon be available in town at Plain Wayne and Jane.
