Two festivals, same day: Are there enough country fans to go around?
The organizer of the Eastbound Hoedown Music Festival says it's unfortunate that another country music festival has been announced for the same day, but thinks there are probably enough fans to go around.
Aug. 26 will mark the fourth year for the festival at Eastbound Speedway in Avondale, and will feature performances by Randy Houser, Terri Clark, Tim Hicks, Kim Mitchell and The 8 Track Favourites.
Tickets went on sale for Eastbound Hoedown on Tuesday, the same day music promoter David Carver announced his AtlanticFest would be also be taking place in Grand Falls-Windsor on Aug. 26, and would be featuring country star Blake Shelton.
"It was kind of a surprise, especially on our on sale day," said Eastbound Hoedown event director Mike James.
"We're not really stressed too much about it because Grand Falls is a beautiful place, we're part of that business community out there."
James said after the success of the last three years, there was a lot of anticipation for this year's Hoedown and the first day of ticket sales seems to have gone well according to web traffic on their site.
Hard choice
At the same time, he does think it will make for a hard choice for those who were looking forward to his event but also are big Blake Shelton fans.
"We have a lot of fans but it really, really sucks for some people that are Blake Shelton fans," he said.
James also knows that having two festivals the same day in a small province like Newfoundland and Labrador can divide the audience.
He said that was probably the case in 2015 when a promoter put off the Confederation Hill Festival in St. John's on the same day as Exploits Valley Salmon Festival.
James doesn't think AtlanticFest will hurt Eastbound Hoedown, saying he feels there are enough country music fans in the province to make both events work.
In fact he's already looking toward Eastbound's fifth anniversary concert next year and is already in the process of booking artists.
"Newfoundland likes outdoor concerts, and there's a lot of people from central and west that we don't actually get sometimes," he said.
"I think both festivals will do well."
