Small town, big festival
The sun sets on Saturday evening at the main stage of the 2008 Nakusp Music Festival. —photo by Andrew Zwicker
For three days each July, the small mountain town of Nakusp becomes the epicentre of the summer music festival universe, proving that it indeed does take a village to raise a rock festival. Now rocking into five years of existence, the multi-day music extravaganza that has become a permanent fixture on many a music lover’s calendar didn’t happen overnight, and literally has thousands of people to credit for its success. One of the catalysts to getting the festival rolling was Willi Jahnke, a German ex-patriate who had been organizing music events for more than 15 years in his native land under the brand Octopus Productions. “It was a group of local people that decided they wanted to put on a festival, so it really started as a non-profit organization,” said Doug Switzer, Jahnke’s partner in Octopus Productions. “They brought Willi in who has had the company Octopus Productions doing rock concerts in Germany for over 15 years. He was living in town and so got involved with it.” “It was a group of local people that decided they wanted to put on a festival, so it really started as a non-profit organization,” said Doug Switzer, Jahnke’s partner in Octopus Productions. “They brought Willi in who has had the company Octopus Productions doing rock concerts in Germany for over 15 years. He was living in town and so got involved with it.” There were numerous challenges in trying to pull off a music festival in such a small and remote area. Finding supporters and volunteers for the event proved to be the easy part. Finding the money to pull it off was a little more difficult. “The first year it was basically done with very little money,” Switzer said. “I think people used their personal credit cards to finance the thing in the first year. As it got bigger and bigger, we started working on contract with the Nakusp Roots Music Society which is the non-profit group that puts on the festival. We are contracted for the production and administration of the event.” Jahnke and Switzer’s contribution to the music festival was largely in bringing in the production expertise and relationships with managers of big name acts to add some star power to the lineup. The bulk of the effort in pulling off the event comes from the enormous community and volunteer support that the Nakusp Roots Music Society has pulled together to host thousands of concert-goers. “It’s a huge challenge to do something like this in a small town like Nakusp, and the only reason the music fest works, is because they’ve got an incredible board of directors and a large pool of really talented volunteers,” said Switzer. “Their people just work endless hours volunteering to put that thing together. I don’t think people have any idea how much work the Nakusp Roots Music Society puts into it. That’s the biggest challenge—to keep people working, and not to burn out the people that are here, because there is so much work to putting it on.” Working together as a team of five, Octopus Productions, with Jahnke and Switzer as partners in the company, have really made their mark on the music world with their professionalism in dealing with big name artists. In order to attract the big stars and have them return year after year Octopus must meet the high end demands of the acts as most musicians have never heard of Nakusp. “We try to keep the event as professional as we can,” said Switzer. “When it’s not a good idea to cut corners we don’t do it, and particularly when dealing with the bands. They’re used to doing things a certain way and they want to know that we’re professional enough to know what’s expected.” The 2008 version of the festival was highlighted by the likes of Aaron Prichett, Johnny Reed, Smashmouth and Doug’s favourite act of the weekend, Paul Rodgers, the ex-front man for Free, Bad Company and now Queen. The diversity of the music—from rock, country, big band, blues and of course ’80s glam with the likes of Prism—opens up the appeal of the show to a wide range of audiences that come from near and far to take in three days of lakes, music and mountains. Selling out this year, the little festival that probably brought more than 5,000 people a day through the concert grounds has an estimated $3 million dollar impact on the local economy. The quality of the event put on and the economic impact on the community are large factors in the town’s acceptance of the festival. “I think we enjoy pretty widespread support in the community,” said Switzer. “We did a poll last year and it came in that overall about 75 per cent of the town supported the music fest. I think that’s pretty good. You’re not going to find any issue that you get 75 per cent of the people agreeing on in any town.” Now looking to the future with the success of the Nakusp Music Festival under their belts, Octopus is reaching out to other locales to produce events. The soon to be completed South Okanagan event centre in Penticton will feature an Octopus-produced event featuring Feist as the venue’s grand opening act and five days later they’ll bring Chicago to town for the band’s first appearance in the Okanagan. Setting their foundation as a company grounded in community values, Octopus Productions’ future should remain bright as they stick to their method of building community support for their events. “I think the core thing to do something like the Nakusp Music Festival is that you have to get support from the community, you’ve got to get that volunteer base and that group that’s going to work on it,” said Switzer. “It’s a huge thing to do in a small place and you can’t just do it with money. It’s got to be a community effort and a community project to get it done and make it work.”
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