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Salmon Arm summer staple starts: Roots and Blues Festival underway this weekend

SALMON ARM – An annual tradition is already underway in Salmon Arm. The Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival kicked off Friday afternoon and dozens of acts are scheduled to perform over the course of the weekend.

“If you are a roots music fan, which is a pretty big umbrella, whether it is Celtic, blues, bluegrass [or] singer songwriter stuff you are going to find it here and it is all going to be of a high caliber,” says the festival’s artistic director Peter North.

Last year organizers did not get the ticket sales they were expecting. The lower than expected sales were one of the factors that left the non-profit society that runs the event without the same post-festival operating funds it usually has.

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“In the past we’ve had an operating budget at the end of the festival in order to start booking artists for the next year,” said Kelly Moores speaking for the Salmon Arm Folk Music Society in September 2014.

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“This year, through various reasons, we have a shortage in that area,” Moores explained after the 2014 festival.

However, as the fest gets underway for another year there is more optimism about the events financial situation. North says this year’s ticket sales are on track.

“Our financial people are saying things to us with a smile on their face,” he says.

And in the end it is all about the music. For this year’s festival there was a renewed focus on including world music in the lineup. The 2015 edition of the festival is also paying tribute to the Grateful Dead.

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