The Art of Booking Pt. 4 - Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival with Louis Robitaille

[00:00:00] Rosalyn: Hello, and welcome to season two of ReFolkUs, where we talk to artists and music industry professionals about building sustainable careers as creative workers with a focus on folk. I'm your host, Rosalyn Dennett.

Hello and welcome to ReFolkUs. Louis Robitaille is the President and Program Chair of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Society, a volunteer-run charitable organization with the mandate to present folk music and folklore on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Louis has volunteered for the organization for over 20 years and is an educator with over 25 years experience teaching college and currently works as a staff officer for the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.

Here's our conversation with Louis Robitaille. Louis, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?

[00:01:07] Louis: I'm good, thanks.

[00:01:08] Rosalyn: So I'm wondering if we can start off by, uh, you telling us a little bit more about, Lunenburg and, maybe a bit of the origins of the festival, how long it's been running, where is it, when is it, what can we expect?

[00:01:21] Louis: So the origins, to start with that, it's started back in 1986, so we're in our 39th year, so we're planning our 39th festival. yeah, thank you, it is a fairly long running Festival. small to medium sized festival. We have our main stage that holds a thousand people under a tent and then another three to five hundred people wandering the grounds on top of that.

So, that's our main site, but if you look at ticket sales, we sell upwards of 6,000 tickets, depending on day passes and things like that. So those are the types of numbers that we have attending. It's in downtown Lunenburg. So Lunenburg, Nova Scotia is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Old Town, the home of the Blue Nose, as many people know, and that's part of where we use for a venue. So, we've been going, like I said, 39 years. It was started by a small group as a society. So we're a not for profit, volunteer run, charitable society, in Lunenburg. one of the founders is Joel Plaskett's father, Bill Plaskett. Then he and a group of people started the festival, modeled on something Bill and others saw down in Boston. So the idea of Folk Harbor, the vision of it was music sailing into the harbor of Lunenburg. So the idea was a circle around Lunenburg that included New England states and Newfoundland and parts of the UK.

And the idea is that these musicians would be sailing into Folk Harbor. So that's the concept of it.

[00:03:05] Rosalyn: And, uh, yeah did that ever get achieved? Did people actually sail, have people sailed in to the gig?

[00:03:10] Louis: So we've, both had musicians playing on boats, but also, it's rare for people to sail in, but we have had artists that have, sailed into there, uh, Lenny Gallant would be one who has stayed on a sailing ship while performing at festival,

[00:03:28] Rosalyn: Neat. I think when I, had the pleasure of attending, years ago, but I think I saw the, the once play on, it's either the Blue Nose or something like right beside it, like right on the harbor on a ship. And it was, quite a neat experience.

[00:03:41] Louis: that's one of our venues is the wharf stage, so the wharf stage often has the blue nose as a backdrop and another sailing ship as a backdrop to it,

[00:03:51] Rosalyn: And, and when does the festival typically go on?

[00:03:54] Louis: we are always in August and we're always on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday following the long weekend. So some people think of us as the second weekend, but we're always after the holiday Monday.

[00:04:07] Rosalyn: I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about some of the other venues. So you mentioned the wharf stage. What are some of the other places that folks get to see music?

[00:04:14] Louis: So, our main stage, evening stage, is a tent that holds a thousand people. and it's up on what's known as Blockhouse Hill. Blockhouse Hill has a view of Front Harbour and Back Harbour. Front Harbour is where most of the ships are sailing back. Harbor is fishing. So there's a bunch of fishing boats that use that harbor. We're up on a hill that overlooks the town. That's our main site. I've mentioned the worst stage. The worst stage is associated with the fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. And like I said, it has the blue nose parked on 1 side, but it has other sailing ships and fishing boats. Parked in the harbour there.

We then use churches and church halls for many of our different things and we own and operate the Lunenburg Opera House as well. So we use that as a venue. So the Lunenburg Opera House is 120 years old, 125 years old fairly soon. It's a historic theatre in the heart of Lunenburg, and we use that as one of our sites.

It holds 300 people. Churches such as St. John's Anglican Church, the second oldest Anglican church in the country. Uh, it's the one that burnt down back about 20 years ago, right to the ground, and has been rebuilt and refurbished. So that's one of our stages. The United Church is another one of our stages, so that's some of our afternoon venues, and we also use the bandstand in the middle of town.

This year, for the first time, we've had the wharf stage as a free stage, so it's no ticket. On the wharf stage and the bandstand has been non ticketed for a long, long time. So we have two free stages in the afternoon and three paid stages. Then in the morning we run three stages, a couple of church halls, that we do workshops out of.

So we have a church hall that we do a dance workshop out of, and we have a church hall that is named after Val Meister. Val Meister was one of the founders of the festival and she was a founder of a fiddle workshop. So every year we have a youth fiddle workshop in one of the church halls.

[00:06:26] Rosalyn: Okay. And when you say workshop, people teaching something or is it more of like a in the round?

[00:06:32] Louis: So we make a distinction between workshop and circle. A workshop for us is teaching. And so we have several different workshops throughout the weekend. Typically a couple of vocal workshops, typically a gospel workshop, where audience members come to sing along and be taught. And the artists that help with that are teaching two or three songs.

So in a 90 minute set, they're not expected to do 90 minutes of music. They're expected to stop, split up the group into altos and tenors, et cetera, et cetera, and teach how to perform those couple of songs. Fiddle workshops, like it seems, would be teaching youth how to play fiddle. and often. What we do is, get one of our headliners, who's a fiddler, to work with a couple of area fiddle teachers and teach youth how to perform their songs and then perform later in the day.

So those are what we normally know as workshops. So a dance workshop would also be a 90 minute session with some artists performing music to dance to. Either the artists themselves would be teaching the dancing, or dance instructor that comes and helps facilitate those things. So that's what we mean by workshop. We really do mean Teaching instruction, as opposed to circle. So, afternoon sets. We have three stages that we use for doing sets where you are on the stage by yourself doing your performance. and then we have to. venues that we use for Circles. So the Circles would be what you think of the round, right?

So it would be three to five different acts on stage together taking their turns.

[00:08:17] Rosalyn: Great. And do you still do, Um, the kind of finale performance on the Sunday, can you describe that?

[00:08:23] Louis: So yeah, Sunday evening would be our last performance. It's the only thing going on in the evening. We only have the main stage going on. and, yeah, we have a big finale at the end, trying to get one of our bigger name headliners to close out the night. Last year we had Rose Cousins close out the night.

So, yeah, that's fairly typical for us. Thursday night we try to start off with a bang as well, so we look at a big name to start off. The other thing that might be different from some other places is Thursday afternoon we start what we call Folk Steps Conference. So a Folk Steps Conference is actually very short sets of music, but more about talking and explaining a different aspect of folk music.

So we've done the gamut of International Indigenous, where we've had, Indigenous people from Australia, New Zealand, with Canadians, doing a conference, so they talk about the music and the styles. We've had Celtic, because of where we are. Last year, we had the Power of Women in Song. So we had a lineup of female acts that talked about being female, being women and working in the industry. We've been doing this for going on 15 years, starting the festival with a conference.

[00:09:39] Rosalyn: And who usually attends the conference?

[00:09:41] Louis: in terms of audience, it would be the type of people that want to hear the story behind the music as well as the music itself. So, certainly there is performance during the conference, but it's like the type of concert where there's extra long introductions to certain things, right?

So, about half the time is spent talking, and there's also time for Q&A.

[00:10:04] Rosalyn: Great. Then is this something that you're taking into account when you're booking, you know, specifically with that in mind, or do you kind of look through the people that are already on? The list and go, who has the gift of gab here that can talk about what they do?

[00:10:18] Louis: Yeah, so, in terms of booking, I often tell artists unless you're really, really good, it's not good enough to be good enough. We look at a range of things when we're booking. So certainly, the conference helps sort of define a theme for us. And so this year our theme for the festival mirrors the theme for the conference.

And this year it's, the story told in song. So we're looking for storytellers, right? So the type of song that. Lends itself to telling a story. Certainly we're looking while we book to fill that aspect of it, just like, last year we had all female headliners and we were looking for strong female leads.

For both the festival and for the conference, this year we're looking for storytellers, right? And so, from singer songwriters, it's not that hard to find many that are also storytellers.

[00:11:15] Rosalyn: That's really interesting.

[00:11:16] Louis: And it's also true, like I said, It's more than just how they can perform. It's how they can mix together. So it's often that we're looking for individuals that know each other. It makes the circles better. And we also have to have a number of acoustic blues performers, in order to have a circle.

And so if you don't have that, you're not going to have that circle. We look for a number of old time bluegrass types of people so that you can have that circle. and we always have to have somebody that's able to lead our gospel stage Sunday morning.

[00:11:50] Rosalyn: Can you describe the gospel stage and, and how that works?

[00:11:53] Louis: Yeah, so the gospel stage is, you know, a programmer's nightmare, because they have somebody to host it. And so, you know, Ken Whiteley is hosted a number of times, because of his background. so we have a host or two hosts that are able to start the thing off, but then the. The vast majority of our main stage acts get up on stage and perform one song. And so we need a back line of musicians, typically, they would be bluegrass people, or they are gospel people, or they're blues players, right?

So we often look for somebody who can play keyboards, somebody who plays a stand up bass, a fiddler or two. That type of thing, a mandolin player, and they would form a back line that are sitting on the back of the stage, and they would play along with everybody or anybody, and they will jump in. Whether they're asked to or not, one of our acts who also did the workshop, the gospel workshop, kicked the whole thing off.

We have six minutes, they get up on stage, plug in, play their song, get off the stage, get the next act up. So that's a very fast, rapid, Arrangement of getting up on stage. You have six microphones and 60 eyes up in the front of the stage. You get up there, plug in, play your song, get back off.

And it's really rapid fire. And it's the most popular thing at our festival. So we typically have fourteen fifteen hundred people up on the main stage for an audience then.

[00:13:26] Rosalyn: So it sounds to me like, bands performers that have the ability to, like, improvise and collaborate. Like, that's something that you're really looking for, during the booking process. Would you agree?

[00:13:39] Louis: Yeah, well certainly you need a certain number of people and I would say mostly people that are able to play well with others, we often get a couple of Newfoundland bands, a couple of Cape Breton bands. Certainly most of those know how to play well with others because they're used to that, right?

They're used to jamming with all sorts of people. Blues players and bluegrass players typically are very capable of doing that type of thing. And then often we're looking at people that know each other and have played along with each other, right? So, somebody like Rose Cousins can sing backup for anybody and has proven that through a number of albums.

And then, you know, certainly Ken Whiteley has produced a lot of people and is willing to, support most anybody, on mandolin or guitar, right? So those are the types of people that you need at least some of them in order to

[00:14:34] Rosalyn: Louis, how do you discover new bands or new music?

[00:14:37] Louis: might be known by some, but probably not all people were a committee of four. So I'm the program chair, and I'm the chair of a committee of four different individuals. We are all volunteers. So I have a day job that is not in the music industry. and so we go out and try to see as much music as we can. certainly we have a presence at the ECMAs, East Coast Music Awards, the Music Nova Scotia Awards, Music PEI Awards, et cetera, et cetera. I was at Folk Music Ontario this year. we have gone to, the. international conferences as well, both in the UK and the States.

And so we are always on the hunt for music and that would be vacation time for us. So we would be taking vacation and going and doing those sorts of tourings. Certainly we try to get out to as much music as we can in our local area. So that's how we look for new talent. and we're always on the hunt for new musicians and new talent.

We also started a couple of years ago. So 2022, we've done it twice already. We've started a songwriters camp for emerging artists, upcoming artists. So that's something that we're always on the hunt for as well as emerging artists. And we have them at a camp led by two of our headline acts, and they spend a week with these headline musicians and learn their craft, and that's some place that we find new talent as well.

[00:16:08] Rosalyn: So do you take submissions for the festival and if so, what's that process and, and when should folks apply?

[00:16:13] Louis: So submissions, if you go online there is a ‘how can I play?’ We do more than festival. So we have three series’. We have a fall series, a spring series and a summer series and so you can apply for that. And for the festival through our website. It is a form that is filled out with as much detail and as much music that we can hear.

Videotapes of live performances are good, but high quality is the best. So something on a cell phone is not really what we're looking for. We're looking for some better live performance that has been taped to look at so that we get an idea of the feel of the performers, but certainly online at FolkHarbour.com. how can I participate and there's a place to fill things in that form comes directly to me and then I share it with my committee to listen to

[00:17:04] Rosalyn: So how many artists do you book each year?

[00:17:07] Louis: At the Festival, we have 24 main stage spots. Then we fill out that program by hiring about 14 to 16 more people, so 24 main stage spots, about 10 emerging artists, and then another five or six people to help us fill out workshops. And like I said, workshops to us is something that is teaching.

So that would include music teachers and dance instructors. So that's a festival. We have about 40. Then we have three series from eight to 10 shows per series. So we're looking at another 30 acts. and so we program about 70 acts per year, even during COVID, we had, upwards of 50 shows.

[00:17:55] Rosalyn: Do you have regional quotas? Do you bring in international acts?

[00:18:00] Louis: we don't have any regional quotas, but because of budgeting, it is, uh, cheaper to have Nova Scotians than others, obviously. And we certainly have a lot of Atlantic Canadians perform, but we have typically a couple of Americans. We've had people as far away as Australia and New Zealand, UK as well and other European countries.

this past year. We had enough acts from Winnipeg to have a Winnipeg circle of four different acts. So yeah, it's, you know, it's hard to know where people are going to come from, but yeah, certainly we have one or two Kitakawa acts typically in a given year at festival. some people from the prairies, Alberta, Saskatchewan.

As far away as B. C., obviously, many singer songwriters out of Ontario. But yeah, obviously because of budgeting, Nova Scotians can come for less.

[00:18:54] Rosalyn: So, Louie, I know the festival is called the Folk Harbor Festival. Do you think much about genre when you're booking?

[00:19:01] Louis: When we look at booking acts, certainly we have a number of singer songwriters. Is that a genre or not? I'm not quite sure. But certainly we have people that have their one instrument, typically a guitar, sometimes a piano, and they're performing solo or as a duo with a bass player or something like that.

We try to have old time bluegrass. At festivals, we try to have somebody that's able to do at least two or three acts so that we can have a circle made up of that. one of the most popular things. is blues and bluegrass as a complement to gospel. So obviously, we don't hire too many gospel acts, but people that are able to play gospel are very important in terms of Sunday morning.

So in terms of genre, yes, certainly we have that. Then often we have, because of where we are, Celtic acts. That type of thing.

[00:19:57] Rosalyn: So, do you typically work with independent acts or, more so with, folks that have agent representation?

[00:20:04] Louis: So we work with both. So, you know, often, depending on how well people are known, they may have an agent, they may not have an agent. So we work directly with artists, but if somebody has an agent or a manager, we will work through the agent and manager. We don't try to make shortcuts around people. try to do an end run on an agent.

If we go to the website and the act has an agent, then we're going to book through the agent. Uh, so we work with both, some of the, the bigger name agents, both, out of Toronto, Nova Scotia, and, even international agents like Fleming out of the U. S.

[00:20:37] Rosalyn: What's your booking cycle like? So like timing wise, when do you usually try to set out offers? When would you typically announce your lineup?

[00:20:47] Louis: So. Our festival is in early August. We start booking right away, so we start booking for festival the end of August, the beginning of September. We are now about two thirds booked for festival. We typically are around that by Christmas. We want to be two thirds, three quarters of the way booked.

We want to have our headliners all booked. And we're typically done booking for festival, January, early February. We do an announcement of our lineup typically in March. And so we want to be fully booked by then. Uh, if you're looking for a festival spot right now, uh, we are looking for very specific things to fill certain holes.

So it's not just anybody that we would be considering at this time. We would be looking for very specific things. That being said, like I said, we do three other series. So, if not festival, we also Hire for the summertime, 10 weekends in the summer and then fall and spring and in the summer, it's a two o'clock set on the bandstand in the middle of Lunenburg every Saturday.

And so it's one of those spots where if you're an artist looking for an extra gig. you have the time to do that and make it to Halifax and do an evening set as well. So if you're looking at trying to fill out a tour, it's not a bad idea to contact me in terms of trying to fill out a tour.

[00:22:18] Rosalyn: So, Louie, before we wrap up, do you have any advice for folks looking to develop a market in Nova Scotia?

[00:22:25] Louis: Yeah. So in Nova Scotia, there is a lot of music in Nova Scotia and a lot of venues that present. Certainly. Halifax has a number of them, but if you're looking at putting together a tour, there's Contact East. Contact East, similar to other places in the country, highlights some artists and people like me go and Look at artists and acts for booking.

There's the Atlantic Presenters Association that does block booking. So if you're looking at trying to build a tour, they're somebody that could help do tour building. There are a number of festivals out this way through the summer. Stanfest is a couple weeks before us. Harmony Bazaar is an all women's Festival down the road from us, Under the Spire in PEI. Levee on the Lake just outside of Moncton. So there's a number of festivals that take place around the same time. So Levee on the Lake is the week after us. Deep Roots in Wolfville is in September. And it's possible to get us set in our fall series, if you've played, there and Wolfville in September.

So there is a number of different theaters in small towns, anywhere from 200 seats to three 50. Like I said, the Lunenberg opera house is a 300 seat theater that we own and operate and run concerts out of. So there's a number of places all around. Certainly now a bunch of breweries are getting into presenting music. So there's a number of microbreweries right across the province that is looking, and I'm sure it was similar in PEI and New Brunswick as well, that are looking for talent.

[00:24:11] Rosalyn: Louis Robitaille, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We really appreciate it.

[00:24:16] Louis: thanks for asking me to do this and thanks for listening.

[00:24:19] Rosalyn: Thanks, Louis. Have a great day.

That's all for this episode, friends. The ReFolkUs Podcast is brought to you by Folk Music Ontario. Find out more by heading to folkmusicontario.org/refolkus. That's R-E-F-O-L-K-U-S. The podcast is produced by Kayla Nezon and Rosalyn Dennett and mixed by Jordan Moore at The Pod Cabin. The opening theme is by King Cardiac, and the artwork is by Jaymie Karn.

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