Future Forest Festival kicks off in new deep-woods home
The skyline near Minto, N.B., is normally isolated and serene.
But this weekend the rhythmic beats and flashing lights coming from a lineup of more than 140 different DJs and performers at the Future Forest Festival will transform the deep woods into a pulsating celebration of electronic music.
"It's been incredible so far," said Tim Kukula, festival director. "And to think last April we couldn't even start building because the snow was too high."
The music festival was forced to relocate after the four previous iterations on the Mactaquac head pond garnered too many noise complaints from locals.
Now the "locals" would be considered deer, moose and the wild turkeys that meandered past the RCMP roadblock set up Friday afternoon to ensure driver sobriety.
"This all used to be an old woodlot," said Kukula, standing in front of a towering music stage that was still being constructed late Friday afternoon. "It's now our new permanent home."
The 200 acres purchased by the festival sit more than eight kilometers from the nearest paved road. Powered by generators, the three main music stages will play music from Friday at 10 p.m. until Monday at 10 p.m.
More than 1,000 of the 1,200 available tickets were sold as of Friday, with organizers expecting to sell out by the day's end.
Nearby residents have raised some eyebrows over the event, not knowing what to expect from the colourfully dressed, sometimes undressed occupants, but Kukula says the isolated location will hopefully allow festival goers and musicians a space to party without disturbing anyone.
"This used to be an abandoned woodlot," said Kukula. "We're out here deep."
The event has turned the "drive-through" province into a destination, as the majority of attendees are not from New Brunswick. The parking lot housed a majority of Nova Scotia and Quebec license plates with only a handful of New Brunswick plates on Friday.
"We looked at our ticket sales from last year and we were approximately 55 per cent from Nova Scotia," said Kukula. "This year we've had a large population from Quebec…I believe Montreal was our third best-selling city."
"It's worth it," said one attendee, after getting her face painted. "Just to be surrounded by these people and this atmosphere. It's worth it to come for the weekend."
