The biggest festival to hit Barrie’s lakeshore celebrates 48 years this weekend and it looks to be a crowd pleaser no matter what you’re looking for.
Kempenfest runs from Friday to Monday and will see approximately 200,000 visitors descend upon Barrie’s lakeshore. The festival is consistently ranked one of Ontario’s best and this year the event will be showcased on the city’s brand new waterfront.
Tom Aikins is the sponsoring and marketing director for Kempenfest and is always ready for the massive job, which takes approximately 800 volunteers to make happen.
“It is about three or four days of set-up and maybe six hours of tear down,” said Aikins. “We’ve had all our big stuff like stages, all the portable washrooms and big tents coming in the last two days. Most of the set-up is Friday with the art exhibits and what not and some of the vendors are open Friday night but they aren’t required to be; it might be a good way for some to get the jump on the crowd and see what’s here.”
Kempenfest kicks off its 48th year with the annual midway, over 400 booths dedicated to arts, antiques and other products as well as lots of food and music with the addition of new water refilling stations.
Aikins has been at the helm of the huge festival for 19 years and has seen it grow and overcome many obstacles in almost two decades.
“This last couple of years we really had to try to get through the construction on the lakeshore which did disrupt the festival in ways,” said Aikins. “For two years we were reduced in size in order to fit what we could in; the arts and crafts exhibits went from 375 down to about 250 and now we’re back up to 375 but just having to reexamine the layout a bit. We’ve historically had a pretty direct path and now we will start to look at that because of the way the walking paths and bike paths have changed. It’s a new look coming, but it won’t be too difficult to figure out.”
Every year, Aikins and his team seem to get great acts to entertain the huge crowds and this year is no different. Big Sugar, Dwayne Gretzky, The Reklaws and Jojo Mason will highlight the weekend with different genres having their own day and local radio stations sponsoring a night. Saturday is rock night with ROCK 95, Sunday is country music night with KICX 106 and Monday has 105.5 KOOL FM sponsoring oldies night.
Aikins is very excited with the musical line-up and believes Kempenfest has always had their finger on the musical pulse.
“The concerts have become a huge draw for us and I tend to think that has a lot to do with mixing the acts up every year as well as bringing back some bands who have delighted the crowds before,” said Aikins. “We also have an indie music stage this year and we’ve got some local acts and musicians from all over who have been making some noise. It's always great when you can provide an opportunity for new musicians.”
Aikins got his start with the festival when he was part of a service group and his predecessor was stepping down and seeing the opportunity to give back to his community he took it.
After 19 years and growing Kempenfest to the huge weekend-long event it is and balancing his full-time job as Delta Gaming’s regional manager, Aikins reflected on what lies ahead for the himself and the festival.
“This year I’m going to take some time and decide my future and we’re really getting lots advice from a research company we hired that is helping us rethink the whole layout of the event because of the new park designs,” said Aikins. “The firm believes the layout is fine but the thought is that maybe Kempenfest restructures our board, find ways to get more involvement from the outside; people who can help us see the bigger picture rather than each group that assists seeing one part of the event which has become simply massive.
"That firm will be here this weekend and give us a report in September and the truth is I’ve taken the event to a size now where it is too much work for me or just one or two people. The direction we’re heading may need a full-time general manager and who knows what else. It may be time for me to retire but we’ll see.”
For more information on Kempenfest weekend and all the musical line-ups and vendors, check out their website or download the Kempenfest app from your Apple store, Google Play or Blackberry World.
