Edmonton boosters take a lot of pride in calling themselves Canada’s Festival City.
However, St. Albert with less than 10 per cent of the population is nipping closely at the heels of its boundary-hugging big brother.
Just by skimming the top of St. Albert’s attractions list, the community at large is involved in nine major events – Family Day Frostival, St. Albert Rotary Music Festival, Poundmaker Lodge Spring Dance Festival, Rainmaker Rodeo, Northern Alberta Children’s Festival, Rock’n August, StArts Festival, STARFest and the Snowflake Festival.
In middle of this abundance, cultural services director Kelly Jerrott announced the City of St. Albert is about to add a new youth festival to the roster.
Amplify, an arts focused event, kicks off in 2014 with an inaugural theme of Dare to Be You. It will mix workshops with youth focused entertainment.
“It’s about bringing stuff forward and putting energy out there,” explained Jerrott referring to the festival moniker.
The tentative dates scheduled are Sept. 26-27, 2014 as a tag-on to Alberta Culture Days.
“As they (youth) go back to school it’s a good way to bring the kids together in a different format.”
The city approved funding in the budget and research was conducted in the early part of 2013.
“There was a little bit of a gap in what we offered youth. We could see the children’s festival was very successful, but they had outgrown it. A separate youth festival would provide a positive focus,” Jerrott said.
“We looked at mentoring and helping youth develop skills and grow as community leaders. With the shift in demographics, we wanted to make sure there were programs for all ages.”
To get the ball rolling, the Youth Festival Association, composed of 19 young adults from 14 to 23 years, spoke with about 12 youth groups catering to 12- to 18-year-olds.
The groups were presented with a survey on the potential event. About 81 per cent of respondents said they were interested in participating and 40 per cent signed up to volunteer, Jerrott added.
On the survey the top four workshops youth were eager to participate in included photography, cooking, graffiti art and music recording – in that order. Creative writing, jewelry construction and filmmaking were also on the list, but received fewer votes.
The city has approved $80,000 in startup funding for the first year to cover artist fees, rentals, marketing fees and a salary for a festival co-ordinator.
“We’re starting from scratch and we’re not working with a nest egg. Because it’s a new festival, council put its priorities on youth and decided it was paying $80,000. We want to make the festival as accessible as possible.”
She added that her department is looking into sponsorship.
