Ken Wallis Chats With Gabor Szepesi & Kathy Mulgrew of The Stonebridge Wasaga Beach Blues Festival
- Ken Wallis
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
The Stonebridge Wasaga Beach Blues Festival is a jam-packed celebration of Blues music. Featuring 20 bands over 3 days, the festival is held on the grounds of the Stonebridge Town Centre in beautiful Wasaga Beach. Entering its 13th year, the festival is a family-fun community outing that caters to music fans with an extensive lineup of established artists.
Ken Wallis interviewed festival organizers Gabor Szepesi and Kathy Mulgrew for the radio show BluesSource Canada. The following are excerpts from that interview, edited and amended for brevity and clarity.
Ken Wallis
The Stonebridge Wasaga Beach Blues Festival is just around the corner. It takes place September 12th, 13th and 14th in beautiful Wasaga Beach. We interviewed Gabor Szepesi, Artistic Director of the Festival, and Kathy Mulgrew, chair of the Festival Board.
Ken Wallis
So, Gabor, tell us a little bit about how this festival got started.
Gabor Szepesi
Well actually history of the festival is Kathy's domain because she's been here for much longer than I have.
Kathy Mulgrew
Well back in 2011, there was a local real estate developer here in town who was a bit of a music buff and he thought starting a festival was a good way to promote community in the area that he was developing. So he started with a tent and some friends who were musicians. And it evolved from there to what it is today, which is, you know, a three-day event with two, two main stages and 20 bands over the three days.
Ken Wallis
And this is the 13th annual, and Gabor, how did you get involved with the festival?
Gabor Szepesi
Well, originally, I used to play keyboards for Wayne Buttery and Wayne was the artistic director at that point. When I first got on board, I just helped Wayne with the production because that's my background. I did that for 40 years, so I basically pulled in all my contacts, and we started to put a better look onto the festival.
Ken Wallis
And Cathy, you're chair of the board for the festival. What does the board do? What's their involvement?
Kathy Mulgrew
Well unlike many organizations, ours is a working board. We write grants which is a mandatory thing to get funding for a festival today. We also have somebody on the board who looks after all of the volunteers. We also have someone who keeps track of all of the sponsorship and makes sure that that's all handled and dealt with in a very organized manner. The board also, makes sure that we’re compliant with all the not-for-profit rules in Canada. From the time the festival ends this year we will be starting to deal with next year, because all of our grant writing happens in December, January, February. So it's a year-round thing.
Ken Wallis
And Gabor, as the Artistic Director, I assume you book most of the acts.
Gabor Szepesi
Yeah, I start booking January and February, so I've already got a wish list started for next year and we'll see how it goes.
Ken Wallis
And how do you go about selecting the bands?
Gabor Szepesi
Well, I really try to find bands that are of the highest quality that we can afford. I've been a musician since Grade 9, so I aspire to find really great players because I love giving them the work.
Ken Wallis
And Kathy, as the board, I assume you're quite involved with the promotion of the event. How do you go about promoting this event, so people are aware of it?
Kathy Mulgrew
That's always a challenge for us because being a small festival, our budget is never as big as we would like it to be. We work closely with the town to make sure that we're included in their advertising. For the tourists that come into town, we also advertise in things like the Blues Festival guide in the US, which helps us bring some US folks up. We produce a card that’s like a postcard that has the lineup as well. And we have those distributed down to the border crossings. We have them at all of the Travel Ontario sites along the 400 highway corridor. We also have them distributed to hotels in the region. As well as we're advertising on five different radio stations.
Ken Wallis
Well, it's a marvellous festival and I think one of the most unique things I've seen in any festival is that you have two stages side by side, one stops, the other one starts. It's just fab!
Gabor Szepesi
It's a great concept because our dead air is very limited. People are there to hear music. They're not there to see a bunch of guys setting up and doing line checks. We have a limited time that we have to do that, but we try to keep it at a minimum.
Ken Wallis
And for folks that are attending for the first time should they be bringing chairs with them?
Kathy Mulgrew
Most definitely. They should be bringing chairs. We try to have as many plastic chairs that we can get from around town and put them out, but those are always limited and every year there's tends to be less and less of them.
Ken Wallis
And is there food available?
Kathy Mulgrew
We have food vendors available, a variety of them. But we also do recognize that families come and bring their kids. And so sometimes having money for vendors is not an option and we tell them you can bring a picnic basket. Feel free. You just can't bring liquids into the festival, but that's a provincial bylaw.
Ken Wallis
And where can folks get more info on the line up and where to get tickets?
Kathy Mulgrew
Ken Wallis
I am really looking forward to it. Fingers crossed that we get perfect weather. It's a great festival. I congratulate everyone that's involved in it. It's quite an accomplishment.
Kathy Mulgrew
Thank you. And one thing there is a giant tent there that if it's too hot or if it rains then don't worry. You can move your chair under the tent so that that's not a problem. The only reason we ever don't go is if there's a weather warning because we don't need to have a tornado.
Ken Wallis is the President and co founder of the Escarpment Blues Society, based in Southern Ontario, Canada.
He is a retired Associate Dean of Media And Entertainment studies at Mohawk College, Hamilton, he's a busy guy, as he is also the host of Blues Source Canada on INDI1015 FM, the show aired for close to ten years on our sister platform, Blues and Roots Radio, and was featured here at The Sound Cafe as a podcast for five years.
Ken is also a valued contributor to The Sound Cafe Magazine, featuring interviews with artists from Canada's blues collective, along with features on many blues festivals. He also contributes to his hometown publication, the Hamilton City Magazine.
