{"id":64964,"date":"2022-03-04T10:51:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T17:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=64964"},"modified":"2022-05-26T09:50:16","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T15:50:16","slug":"music-festival-aims-to-attract-tourism-during-cold-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2022\/03\/04\/music-festival-aims-to-attract-tourism-during-cold-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Music festival aims to attract tourism during cold months"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Hitting the Skins:<\/strong> Michael De Souza, drummer for the Ashley Hundred, in a practice space in Calgary on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. The Ashley Hundred are scheduled to perform at the 2022 edition of the Big Winter Classic music festival. (Photo by James Martens\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

O<\/span>rganizers and affiliates of the music festival Big Winter Classic<\/a> (BWC) are hoping to attract tourism to Calgary during the colder months.<\/p>\n

B<\/span>WC was originally scheduled for Jan. 27-30, but updated COVID restrictions forced the festival to postpone until March 24 and will run for three consecutive weekends.<\/p>\n

Festival director Adrian Urlacher said the extended time frame will provide an opportunity for greater economic return for local businesses, as well as an emotional release for patrons.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to want to get out and socialize,\u201d said Urlacher. \u201cPeople are going to want to get back out of their houses and dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Hessel, senior vice president of marketing at Tourism Calgary, says that festivals like BWC are important to keep tourism alive during the winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t usually travel during the winter and we don\u2019t have as many things open or running at this time,\u201d said Hessel. \u201cThe nice thing about festivals is they provide an urgency. [BWC] is only happening on these\u2026 weekends and it does generate that demand during the winter months for people to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael De Souza, drummer for local band the Ashley Hundred, believes the festival breaking up into multiple weekends would give people more options, and also \u201coffers the opportunity to stretch [the experience] out.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Urlacher, the choice to split the festival up into three weekends was mostly due to complications in rescheduling acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to break up the integrity of the festival,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just tried to adapt with the changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

People are going to want to get out and socialize. – Adrian Urlacher<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even with current COVID restrictions creating uncertainty, Urlacher is confident BWC will happen; however, he added that \u201cif we have a mandate still in place where you have to be seated, you have to wear a mask and you can\u2019t dance\u2026 then we won\u2019t be doing a festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Hessel, building up consistency is important for both the festival and tourism in the years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t get people this year to [attend] Big Winter Classic, hopefully we can create enough buzz and reputation for people to plan it now for next year,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more we can sell that kind of consistency of experience, year over year, we find that it can really build to help these festivals out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organizers and affiliates of the music festival Big Winter Classic are hoping to attract tourism to Calgary during the colder months. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":712,"featured_media":64971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S1 Big Winter Classic JM","footnotes":""},"categories":[1590,5,711,1592],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts","8":"category-entertainment","9":"category-featured","10":"category-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/712"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64975,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64964\/revisions\/64975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}