This summer’s Rock the Shores Festival will have triple the number of acts and double the number of days in a bid to make the Colwood event one of the biggest music festivals on Vancouver Island.
In its second year, the festival will expand from one to two days in July and feature a dozen rock acts, including Weezer, City and Colour and AWOLNATION. Sam Roberts, whose performance was cut short by lightning during last year’s event, is slated to return, co-producers Atomique Productions of Victoria and Goldenvoice of California announced Tuesday.
“We purposely wanted to stay focused on building a rock event,” said Nick Blasko of Atomique Productions.
“There isn’t any hip-hop, dance music or folk. We stuck close to stuff that has proven to do well here in the past.”
Last year’s inaugural Rock the Shores Festival drew 12,500 fans to the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre soccer fields for performances by Roberts, the Tragically Hip, Current Swell and Jets Overhead. It was the largest one-day ticketed outdoor event in Greater Victoria history, Blasko said.
Though producers have reduced the on-site capacity to 10,000 per day for this summer’s instalment, which will run on the July 13-14 weekend, a sold-out festival would set further records.
“That would make it the largest concert event of the summer,” Blasko said.
“Entertainment-wise, it was smooth last year,” Blasko said.
“But the lightning was a problem, as was the ingress [of fans]. That created some issues for us. We planned for that this year. We’ve also taken into account the feedback from last year. It has gone into our planning thus far.”
In addition to the increased roster of acts, on-site amenities have been expanded to better accommodate audience flow.
More entry points to the field, in addition to more food, water and washroom services, are designed to provide a smooth concert-going experience for a potential weekend audience of 20,000.
Bands have been split into two thematic camps. Saturday will feature primarily rock-centric acts City and Colour, Matthew Good, the Sheepdogs, Jimmy Eat World, 54-40 and Acres of Lions.
Sunday’s lineup will feature slightly more cutting-edge fare, with Weezer, Sam Roberts Band, Mother Mother, AWOLNATION and Vince Vaccaro.
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TICKETS, MORE INFO
• Tickets go on sale Friday. They are available online at ticketmaster.ca, by phone at 1-855-985-5000, or in-person at the Juan De Fuca Recreation Centre reception (1767 Island Hwy.), Lyle’s Place (770 Yates St.) or Ditch Records (784 Fort St.).
• Tickets are available in seven price brackets, ranging from $59.50 daily to $189.50 for a weekend VIP pass.
• For more information, go to rocktheshores.com
