The
Birth of the Festival Nomad (Part One)
No, don’t
worry. I am NOT
going back to when I was in my Mummy’s tummy, although that might make an
interesting story! Nor
am I going to recount my youth, another great story! Instead, I’ll just go back
to the beginning of this year. I had just decoded to start up a new event
consulting service and I was trying to think how I could get the ball rolling.
Yes, I had been around festivals and events for over 25 years. Heck, I had even
started a few successful festivals myself and had certainly chaired plenty of
event committees, but was that enough? Did I really know festivals as a “festival attendee”? I thought I did, but
how could I prove it? When I was a “civilian”
the type of festivals Judi and I attended were art related. After all, we were
in the art business, what can I say! In hind sight I can honestly say we didn’t
as much about festivals as we thought we did. There are a lot of different
types of festivals an events out there. I started to explore the Internet. I “Goggled” festivals and events and found
millions of hits worldwide. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Just in North America it would take several life times to visit
all the festivals and events shown. What to do, what to do? I decided to narrow
down my focus to just “Ontario festivals and events”. I
re-goggled and there were still thousands of sites listed. I was a member of Festivals and Events Ontario (FEO), so I
started to go through their festival Guide. I started earmarking festivals that
I thought would be interesting to attend. It was now time to make our first
choice of event to attend. The event was the Elmvale Maple Syrup Festival.
It was having its 40th anniversary, so we thought it would be a good place to
start. We lived in Cobourg and Elmvale is northeast of Barrie, not
exactly a local drive! But, we were committed. So off we drove on a sunny
spring Saturday morning, weaving our way through Toronto
