Music and more

New festival comes to Mont-Carmel

MONT-CARMEL — A new festival is coming to Mont-Carmel, which sets out to provide a unique experience by incorporating music, food and art in one weekend.

“I think most festival producers would agree it’s a strange year to be doing anything, and it’s definitely a strange year to be doing something for the first time,” said Rowen Gallant, one of the producers of the festival. “But it’s exciting for us because we get to try to do this in a really limited way.”

The festival, called Festival Route 11, isn’t the first time there have been performances in Mont-Carmel.

Before Festival Route 11, there was the Fiddlers’ Jamboree, which had been ongoing for more than three decades.

“It was a lovely, lovely event,” said Gallant. “The numbers were dwindling, and it was mostly community members.”

Attendees and performers alike thought it was a lovely festival.

Everyone knew that the Fiddlers’ Jamboree’s heyday was in the past, but nobody wanted to let go of it.

So, in 2019, talks began on how to rebrand the festival and breathe new life into the Mont-Carmel music scene.

Shortly after, Festival Route 11 was born.

“What it’s given us is an opportunity to do is rethink … how we want to present the local Acadian culture,” said Gallant. “To the rest of the Island, certainly, and eventually to the rest of the world.”

The revitalized festival still has music performances at its core, but has extra elements running alongside it – which, Gallant said, makes it stand out from other festivals on the Island.

Festival grounds will be decorated with art by Island visual artists.

There are dinners on Friday and Saturday, and brunch on Sunday, all prepared by Island chefs.

Programming for kids will also be available, including a 20-minute silent puppet show and a sandcastle-building lesson.

“It’s been a lot of fun, thinking about all the different ways that we can go about making something really unique and really different,” said Gallant.

The festival begins the evening of Wednesday, July 28 and Thursday,

July 19 in Summerside, with performances at the Lefurgey Centre and Evermoore Brewery.

On the weekend, Festival Route 11 moves to Centre Goeland in MontCarmel.

It’s a small festival to start, with only around 120 people on the grounds at any given time.

Due to the pandemic, most of the acts are local to P.E.I., including Shane Pendergast and Vishtèn.

One band, though – Hauler – hails from Cape Breton.

In future years, when the pandemic is in the past and travel opens up more, Gallant is optimistic that he’ll be able to expand the festival.

Ideally, he would like to bring in artists from across the country, and perhaps the world.

“We need to grow it steadily and slowly,” said Gallant. “But I think the mix of the local culture and the beauty of Route 11 … will create something that people want to come to, no matter where they’re from.”