The Lighthouse Blues Festival, so named due to the iconic structure that sits on the eastern shores of Lake Huron is about to celebrate its 15th Anniversary on July 12th to the 14th. The small but talent-packed festival features both Canadian and International blues musicians. It’s been deemed one of the top 100 festivals in Ontario by Festivals & Events Ontario and has become a firm favourite among music fans.
Ken Wallis interviewed Rick Clarke for the radio show BluesSource Canada. The following are excerpts of that interview, edited and amended for clarity and brevity.
Ken Wallis
The 15th Annual Lighthouse Blues Festival in Kincardine is about to happen. And joining us to tell us all about it is President and Music Director of the Lighthouse Festival, Rick Clarke. Rick, great making contact again.
Rick Clarke
How are you?
Ken Wallis
Doing just fine. Getting excited, getting ready to come to the Lighthouse Festival. So, can you walk us through some of the main acts that are on the main stage?
Rick Clarke
We have 12 featured artists, six each night for the main stage and they're all great. Colin Linden is our Friday night headliner. Of course, we're excited to bring Colin to Kincardine for the first time. Also on that Friday night we have Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar, Steve Mariner And Local Electric, which is a nice combination for Steve. We're happy from Florida, we have JP Soars And His Gypsy Blues Review with Anne Harris. Anne Harris may not be familiar to a lot of viewers unless they've been down through the States. We're happy to have Anne up here. Blue Moon Marquee, Juno Award winners from the West Coast. And then of course, The SheWolves of London. Over on the Saturday night, we're happy to have The Fog Blues And Brass Band close out Saturday night. We have Steve Strongman and we're bringing Annika Chambers and Paul DesLauriers to Kincardine. It'll be Annika's first time on our main stage, but Paul of course has played for us many times previously. Again, another West Coast Act, David Gogo, and we’re happy to have Garnetta Cromwell and DaGrooveMasters. Plus we have Rosie’s Smokehouse Deluxe. So between the two nights we think we have 12 super and very talented artists.
Ken Wallis
And there's a lot going on in the streets. There's a whole bunch of other artists that will be appearing.
Rick Clarke
Yeah, we have 5 performance stages on the free Saturday Day Street Festival. Probably a little over 25 plus artists all together, mostly local and regional artists will be performing. Plus, there's a lot of other activities that make up the street festival, so it makes for a great weekend. Sunday morning. we wrap up the festival with the Sunday Morning Gospel With The Hunter Family, which is a local very talented local group. And Alfie Smith and Nicole Christian are part of that performance.
Ken Wallis
And where can folks find the entire line-up information?
Rick Clarke
We encourage you to go to our website, our web page, Lighthousebluesfestival.com. And also follow us on social media. We're on Instagram and Facebook.
Ken Wallis
And I assume that's where they would get tickets?
Rick Clarke
Tickets are at Ticketscene and we encourage online ticket sales. In the past we have on the Saturday night ended up selling out.
Ken Wallis
Well, I rate the Lighthouse Blues Festival is one of the best around. It's fantastic and I know you guys must have put hours and hours in to pull this off.
Rick Clarke
We start right after the summer. We start looking right after wrap and start making our plans and reaching out to artists in the fall. So yeah, it's pretty well a full year effort by our team. We're not a big festival and that’s deliberate. We want to create a very intimate up-close experience. If you look at the the pictures on our website, you'll get a sense of what the mainstage is. Maximum seating is about 1000 people we run in that 800 to 1000 those two nights. Kincardine is a summer destination experience, so there's a lot to enjoy in the community aside from the festival. We encourage people to make it a full weekend of it.
Ken Wallis
It's a great festival. I am so looking forward to it and I thank you so much for your time.
Rick Clarke
And we're happy to have you.
Marilyn & Rick Clarke
FOLLOW THE LIGHTHOUSE BLUES FESTIVAL
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