The Art of Booking - Mariposa Folk Festival with Spencer Shewen

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Hello and welcome to Refolkus. Our guest today is Spencer Shewen, interested with the role of artistic director of the fabled Mariposa Folk Festival since the fall of 2023.
Rosalyn: At the same time, he continues as creative director of River Fest Elora, where he's played an integral role in guiding the festival since 2013. Spencer also sits on the board of directors for the Elora Center for the Arts.

Previously, he has held seats on [00:01:00] the boards of River and Sky Festival, the Halifax Pop Explosion, the Hillside Festival, and CFRU 93. 3 FM. He has also worked as Artistic Director for Waterstock and 100 Mile Riot, curated the Fortnite music series, and acted as Label Manager for Sunnylane Records from to 2008, among many other adventures.

Mariposa, founded in 1961, has hosted icons like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Gordon Lightfoot. The 2025 Mariposa Folk Festival takes place July 4th to 6th at Tudhope Park in Orillia, and the lineup is out now, so go check it out.

The Riverfest Elora dates are set for August 15th to 17th. Spencer, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing?

Spencer: Thanks for having me. I'm doing good.

Rosalyn: Well, that's quite a CV you've got there. you're coming from a big background in curation and working in this field, even though you're, you're fairly new to, the Mariposa Folk Festival. can you tell me a little bit about how you got into it, how you got into working [00:02:00] as an artistic director and what, what interested you about working in this field.

Spencer: yeah, so I started, I, I remember when I was a, when I was a kid, my mom loves telling the story of like, I, whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said to wanna be the guy that picked the songs on the radio because somehow, even when I was like seven, I knew that there was somebody that did that. And, Has always been something that has stuck with me. After high school, I didn't go to university right away or college. Like a lot of my friends did. I ended up bartending for a few years and working in a live music venue called the Trattateria and Jimmy Jazz and Guelph. And one of my friends, I ended up going to the Harris Institute in Toronto for basically recording arts management was the program at the time.

It's basically everything to do with the entertainment industry and business and PR and graphic design and all that stuff. And he called me while he was there and he was just like, if I know anyone that needs to be going to this school, it's you. And so. I looked into it and decided to go as a one year high intensive program.

While I was there I started Sunny Lane [00:03:00] Records with a guy named Ted Hegel, who was working at a record label called Rainbow Courts Records at the time. I sort of knew what I was doing because I was in school for it. But like, we were just a couple of guys in our mid twenties, like seeing what we could do.

And we ended up getting national distribution through Fontana North. And put out a Cramdon's record Donovan woods, his first album, what we put out on that label, a band called Hopewell, which is an offshoot of, Mercury Rev. And some other great stuff. And it was, a really good experience, good learning experience.

And also helped me get to know just a lot of people in the industry and kind of expand my network that way. But also realized fairly quickly that owning a record label, running a record label. Especially at that time when the internet was kind of starting to change the way everything was structured and stuff.

it was kind of a money pit if I'm being honest. So I learned a great deal, really happy about the experience. We decided to shut it down after about four or five years. And, but at the same time I'd started promoting club shows basically. So booking shows in Guelph and a few in Toronto and [00:04:00] stuff.

And moved back to Guelph and started booking shows once or twice a month at the E Bar in Guelph, which was a great music venue that ran there for a number of years. And I always knew that I wanted to work in music and work in events. So kind of like just kept plugging away at that and kind of taking every opportunity that was offered to me and just trying to keep my options or just keep learning, I guess, is what I was doing.

And then, uh, had opportunity to be on the board at the board of directors at Hillside and learned a lot there you know, Sam Baijal is a legend and got the opportunity to just talk to him ask him lots of questions and learn a lot from everybody that was there and how festivals are run and all that kind of stuff.

And also with the Guelph Jazz Festival, helping there and just kind of trying to keep, absorbing as much as I could. In 2012, I met the people running River Fest, Laura, which is kind of still in a growing period at that point, it had been started as a backyard festival fundraiser for the Elora Center for the Arts.

The first few years there were about four or [00:05:00] 500 people at it, kind of a one day thing. And then in 2012, they moved to Bissell Park and made it a little bit bigger. I think that year the headliners, it was still one day, the headliners were Wooden Sky and Cuff the Duke and Tony McManus.

And I was managing a restaurant called the Cornerstone in Guelph at the time. And John and Sean from Riverfest came in and asked if they could sell tickets for Riverfest Allura at the Cornerstone and it happened to be taking place on my birthday. So I said, sure, you can sell tickets here.

If I can have 10 free tickets to come to the festival for my birthday. So that was my first year going to Riverfest. brought a bunch of friends, had a great time by the river, you know, went skinny dipping behind the stage, like did all the stuff and then kind of kept that relationship going with them. And then the following year they decided to expand the festival to two days and then I ended up helping with the lineup cause I was booking all these club shows and had connections with booking agents and good relationships in that. And, so they brought me into help with that a little bit. And kind of just kept taking on a little bit more [00:06:00] kind of grew into the role there with them as the festival grew, my responsibilities grew to the point where we are now, I guess.

Rosalyn: Tell us a little bit about the size and scope of River Fest.

Spencer: So, River Fest is a three day outdoor music festival. it's just outside downtown of Elora in a park. It gets between 000 people a day over the 3 days. There's 3 stages. food vendors craft beer, all that stuff. as far as the programming goes, it's a bit I would call it like, I like to say it's a popular music festival.

So as opposed to a folk festival, it's a bit more like rock pop, hip hop, some country, some punk. The programming is all really upbeat, kind of like party atmosphere vibes, mostly upbeat party atmosphere vibes. Like we still have your Donovan woods and your Amelia Curran and people like that come. Feist headlined a few years ago but it's, overall, it's a very what I would say popular music festival.

Rosalyn: Great. And then for those of you who are listening, that's somehow Mariposa, which I can't [00:07:00] imagine there are any, but can you explain a little bit about kind of the size scope, the lore and fables as you have in your bio of, of Mariposa.

Spencer: I feel very grateful to be able to be a small part of Mariposa's history. It's been around since 1961. It's having its 65th year, as you said, this year. It's famous for having been one of the first festivals that people like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and Bruce Cockburn all kind of came up with through that festival.

Came every multiple years and would come even when they're not performing to like come hang out. it's probably Canada's most urban, even North America's most storied festival in a lot of ways. Mariposa as far as size and scope is about 10, 000 people a day over the three days multiple stages 11 stages There's everything from performance, like straight up performances to workshops and all kinds of stuff that happens.

Rosalyn: My question was going to be what sets Mariposa apart, but I feel like Mariposa it's one of the founding folk festivals in Canada.

So has been kind of a [00:08:00] trendsetter, what do you feel like makes that festival special?

Spencer: It is a really special festival. It's become almost a rite of passage for a lot of musicians to be able to play it. You really feel it when you're there.

There's a reverence for it. From the artists that are playing to the people that are attending to the volunteers, like everybody is there because they feel like they own part of it, but they're also because they're part of the history of, the ongoing success of, of the festival.

Mariposa also is credited depending who you talk to, I'm pretty sure it is the originator of the, what we call like a workshop where like multiple artists come together and, play each other's songs or improvise or take turns, like, get a chance while they're in this one place together to collaborate live on the stage.

And it's those are some of the most magical moments of the festival for sure as well.

Rosalyn: Yeah. When I think about Mariposa's contributions to the festival community in Canada you know, the first thing that comes to my mind is the workshops because that's certainly something that's been adopted across most of the folk festivals in Canada. And it's [00:09:00] really what sets.

The Canadian festivals apart from any other international folk festival is this idea of collaboration. And I'm pretty sure I've said this on every podcast that's about booking folk festivals, but it's truly one of the most unique experiences both for the audience and for the artists, which creates these, beautiful, magical moments that really can't be replicated anywhere else in time. Well, let's talk about, you know, what goes through your mind then. Is this third year booking Mariposa?

Spencer: This is my second. This is my second year. Last year, I was hired in the beginning of November, really in 2023, and had to have the lineup completed by the beginning of February, which is a very short window for how long it takes to really put these things together. but there were a few things that were already booked for, for the year Pam from Mariposa did a great job filling in.

And so part of, part of my job was done, but it was a quick turnaround. So, I was really happy with how it turned out. I called in a bunch of favors and I thought it went off very well. And the reception was great. This year I've had a bit more time.

So, basically like I started [00:10:00] booking this festival before, right around last year's festival. But kind of wanted to get one year under, belt so that I could understand all the nuances between the stages and the scheduling and the workshops. For me programming workshops was fairly new to me.

Like I think I've maybe done like two things that were kind of similar to that in the past. So really understanding the flow of who to put together. how to schedule things so that, are running from one stage to another to get to their workshop things like that.

So this year when I was programming it, as I was programming last year, I was programming just to get the lineup done and out. And then after the lineup was announced, I did the schedule, put the workshops together and stuff and paired people up this year. It's been kind of neat because I've been booking people.

You know, I might have a few things confirmed already. And then I'm looking at another list of artists that we're considering. And I'm like, Oh, this person, if we get them, they could be in a workshop with these people. and it's kind of like, we're programming the workshop as we're booking the lineup So it's, it feels really good. And I think there's going to be some really cool [00:11:00] surprises for people at the festival this year.

Rosalyn: That's so exciting. So when, when you were looking at these lists and putting together, are you kind of imagining in your head, like, well, this would be a wicked jam if these guys were all up on stage together or are you thinking about it kind of genre wise, are you like, these people all write real sad songs, so let's throw them together for a cry fast.

Like, how are you kind of imagining these, these workshops and, getting creative with, with who you're putting together?

Spencer: Yeah, it's kind of all of those things. These people write really sad songs. It'd be, it'd be great to have, these three songwriters on stage just talking about sad songs that they've written and what about those songs resonates for them and maybe have them playing together, playing each other's songs or it's These two bands are really amazing, like roots bands and like, how cool would it be to just have them jam out together and like just create on the stage or, you know, talking to them about maybe, doing a whole set of covering someone else's songs but in their style that kind of thing, there's a few bands that are coming that [00:12:00] are kind of, have big horn sections.

So I'm going to have them kind of collaborate together on stage with like all these horns and see, you know, see what happens there. So just trying to make as many kinds of different and exciting experiences for the people at the festival that you would never see anywhere else. That's like, that's the only opportunity you're going to have to see these people collaborate, which is so cool to be able to do that.

And like I said, it's something that is fairly new to me programming. So it's been just really special to be able to, to have that puzzle to try and put together and have that challenge and really enjoying it.

Rosalyn: So Estelle Klein, who was like one of the founders of Mariposa, was really known for pushing some of the boundaries of what people thought of as, as folk music and bringing together all sorts of different cultures and, and, and people together to perform and play together, do workshops together and then create this collaborative atmosphere When you were talking about booking Riverfest and you're thinking of as a, as a pop music festival.

what are you thinking of when you're booking folk what's your [00:13:00] scope, I guess, when you're, when you're booking folk, for a folk festival.

Spencer: I would say focus such a broad term, right? So it, it, it can really encompass anything. and I think that that's important to keep in mind when you're attending a folk festival and when you're doing what I'm doing and trying to book a folk festival it's really important to have a variety of things.

So like a lot of people, I think when they think of folk, they think of singer songwriters or traditional music, but folk can be hip hop folk can be punk folk can be really it could be anything in my mind. I hope nobody gets upset with me about that. I mean, with Mariposa, for me, come in and I'm not trying to shock anybody.

I want everybody that's been going to the festival for a long time to be very happy with the lineups. But at the same time, trying to bring in possibly some acts that maybe wouldn't normally be considered folk, but that would challenge people a little bit as far as it goes the other thing about booking a folk festival is like, not all of it needs to be folk. [00:14:00] Like there can be a few things that are not folk that are in the lineup to add different layers to it. I think you want to keep everybody interested and you want to make sure that you're not booking any one specific type of sound. Too much you want there to be hills and valleys in the scheduling and in the, in someone's day when they're experiencing the festival.

Rosalyn: Yeah, and also, you know, an interesting thing about Mariposa. But I don't, I don't think it necessarily sets it apart from other folk festivals, but it is certainly present that it is a really family atmosphere. It has one of the largest family areas out of any festivals that I've seen.

A really family oriented event, I would say. And does that come into your mind? when you're programming at all.

Spencer: For sure it does. And it does, especially with the scheduling, like. it's important to just remember that like whose ears are listening to things and all of that stuff as well. But at the same time, you don't want to shy away from something that might be edgy or political in nature, you want to give space for all of those things. So sometimes it's just about the schedule and like what time of [00:15:00] day you put those performers on that might not be as. Appropriate for children or, where you put them on. Like you might put somebody, somebody in the pub tent later on, if there might be some swears or some things like that. But also like, if it fits earlier in the day, maybe you put it there anyway, and you put a little disclaimer on it just so that families know, so everybody's aware of what's happening.

Rosalyn: When you're doing your booking, do you accept submissions like artists Do you book mainly through agents or are you also booking independent artists? Where are you looking when you're putting together your lineup?

Spencer: Most of it's pretty heavily curated. I have lists of artists that I would love to see at both festivals that might not happen this year, that might happen next year, the year after that, we might get to see them. Like it's also not always about, you know, It's about who's available.

That kind of thing. But we do both festivals take submissions. Riverfest has a, an email artist submissions at Riverfest Elora. com. Anybody can send a submission to that. We have a few people that go through it [00:16:00] all year, kind of a rotation. I'm one of those people. We star the ones that we're like, Oh, this is good. This is good. We make little notes, like, keep an eye on this person, that kind of thing. Also for shows that we're doing throughout the year as well. Sometimes something doesn't fit on the festival, but we might want to bring them in for somebody else in a show that we're presenting so that we get a chance to see them live or might make a note to go see them in Toronto or Kitchen Waterloo or wherever they're performing. And then with Mariposa people do submit directly to me. But also Mariposa runs a showcase program so people could submit to that. And then there's a jury of people that selects from the submissions for that. And then about 10 artists are invited to Aurelia in early April, I believe. I hope I'm not getting that wrong. And there's a whole day of basically each performer getting like 25 minutes with there's a jury in the crowd. If it's a full audience, like it's free for people to attend.

It's a great atmosphere. It's really fun. And usually they, I think last year we picked four artists, but it's usually three or four [00:17:00] artists that get selected from that group to come play at the festival.

Rosalyn: Yeah, that's cool. Actually, that's the, that's, that's, I would say quite a unique way to, get your foot in the door, especially if you're like an emerging artist or an independent artist. That's really fun. you mentioned that you kind of started booking this festival, during the last one. Is that kind of your typical timeline? When, when's a good time to be, you know, submitting to you?

Spencer: So I would say like get your submissions in in the late fall, early winter right now I'm getting a lot of emails from people. But the lineup are almost done, or the slots that are open are basically spoken for. So if you're submitting right now for the festivals I'm booking, you're probably late because we announced it in February.

So you think of a festival, I think about when a festival announces their lineup, typically in a given year, you can look that up. Online. Like when did they announce last year? Probably about a month before that usually is when pretty much the festivals are booked. So you want to get your submission in at least a month before they're, they usually announce their lineup because we have to [00:18:00] like complete the lineup, upload everything to the website, get the artwork ready, get the, all the, the press releases and all of that stuff done. So there's a lot of stuff that happens before the lineup comes out to get ready for the lineup release. And I think that people don't always realize that there's all that stuff in the backend. So they're, they're applying right up until the festival gets announced.

Yeah. So my best advice would be probably anywhere from like August to January 1st, I would be sending in applications.

Rosalyn: Great. So speaking of sending in things, we have some questions from our listeners that I'd love to share with you right now.

The first one is from our wonderful friend Leah Holtam who asks, what do you look for when selecting a smaller artist to perform at the festival? So I don't think smaller in size. I'm going to think that that means like more emerging artists or local artists.

Spencer: There's a number of things you look at, like you obviously want, want to, like, is this the music good? Will it resonate with our crowd, with our audience? Often those smaller artists get booked after the larger artists are booked, unless it's something that you've seen in the last year, or [00:19:00] someone's told you like, this was amazing at our festival, you guys should look at this, that kind of thing.

So sometimes it's about like, when you're looking for genre balance What are we still kind of missing? What can we use some more of in the lineup to kind of round it out? But we're also looking at like people's socials how many listeners you have on Spotify that does come in, like it is a factor, but we try, I try not to make it too much of a factor, especially when thinking of emerging artists and local artists, but Those things definitely come up.

Rosalyn: I'll actually add on to that question a little bit because I know that you've come to the Folk Music Ontario Conference, I've seen you around different music conferences. So, maybe I'll tack that question and ask, when you're going to a showcase, what do you, what are you looking for?

What do you like to see when somebody is showcasing for you?

Spencer: So showcases are interesting because they can be a weird environment to see bands. And so when you're sitting there watching artists you kind of have to almost imagine what it would be like in a real life setting. Cause everybody in the room is kind of [00:20:00] scrutinizing the artist.

So it can be stressful and everything like that as well. But are they engaging? Is the music good? Like is like I hate saying is the music good? Because it's all subjective. But does it fit with what I'm looking for? Who else is in the room as well at a showcase?

Like you're looking at like I take note of what other festivals are watching taking the time out of their schedule or they've chosen this artist over this artist like they're there watching it You And then, you know, we all talk. So after the set, we're like, what'd you think of that? And we kind of discussed it.

That happens quite a bit or you run into somebody and they're like, Oh, did you see this? It was so good. And maybe you missed it. You had, you know, you locked that away. You're like, okay, I got to check that out. The nice thing I like about a lot of showcases that conferences too, is a lot of the artists will play multiple times.

you have a chance to, if on the first day you miss somebody that everyone's talking about the next day, a lot of times you can have a chance to see them again. it's also interesting to think about some of the smaller kinds of showcase events I've gone to. Sometimes you'll see an artist one [00:21:00] year and you know, it's okay, but it's not quite there.

you like it, but you're maybe not ready to book it. We might go back a year later or two years later and see the same artists and they've come such a long way. And that's just a really cool experience to see. the development of those artists.

That 's one of my favorite things for sure.

Rosalyn: That's a good point to make to folks that are listening, you know, is to like, you know, don't just go to a conference once, do a thing once and be like, well, I did that. And that's it. You know, people are coming back and they want to be a part of your story and see you again.

Spencer: The other thing too, is the other thing you look forward to, like definitely comes into play. It's like, are they nice? Like, if people are nice, like if, I meet someone and they genuinely seem like genuinely nice people, I will go to my way to help them out. It goes a long way just to be friendly.

Rosalyn: Let's amplify that. Just be nice guys.

Spencer: Yeah.

Rosalyn: Be cool. Okay. Last question here. We got a couple of questions like this and I'm just going to condense them into one question which is how are you making space for culturally diverse artists at two major festivals in Ontario?

Spencer: I will [00:22:00] start with saying, like, we always try to make sure we have a good balance of all kinds of genres and culturally diverse artists. With Riverfest it's definitely been something that's been on our radar since the beginning. I don't like when I see lineups come out and it's all just dudes with guitars.

We've always tried to make a balanced lineup. And a lot of that came from watching Hillside Festival and how well they've done with that. Over the years, Sam's done a great job and same with Mariposa. Like it's important to just be aware of what you're booking as you're booking it. like literally just something that I try to do. And I try to be aware of it as a white dude. As well. Like I understand like the bias that I could, put onto everything and grew up listening to a lot of punk music.

I'm trying to make sure I don't just book a bunch of punk bands Or just people that look like me it's just really important side of that too, is like listening to the other people that are around you and like taking advice from people that are not you when I'm booking a lineup, I don't just book things that I like. I try really, really hard to understand why other people listen to the music that they listen to and want to see the type of thing.

So a lot of [00:23:00] the stuff that I book, I would very rarely listen to at home, but I know that the audience that we have wants to see it.

Rosalyn: oh, that's great.

It's amazing that you're taking on two very different things and, and two very different events and it's great that you're, you're open to the input of others and, thinking about, you know, taking all this stuff into consideration.

Spencer: That's really a big part of it too, is just like understanding that good ideas come from all places too. So it's important to put out in the surveys, what do people want to hear? It's important to like hear from everybody what needs to be at the festival. That's how I've always done things. It's like, I'm not going to just book what I want to see.

Rosalyn: I think that's a great segway talking about this year, 65th anniversary of Mariposa, and you've just recently released your lineup. Congratulations. And I encourage everyone to go and, and check it out. Tell us a little bit about some of the acts that you're, you're excited about seeing this year.

Spencer: It's always interesting. It's booking a [00:24:00] lineup for a festival because, six months ago, how my chart looked and how the slots looked on the festival is completely different to how it ends up by the time you release it, because you You know, your top 10 artists, your first round of like the artists you really want on the festival and two of them might come be able to do it.

And then you, you know, you go to your plan B or your plan C or like you end up booking three things. And then this fourth one doesn't really fit anymore. So you go to a different artist because whatever reasons, there's lots of different reasons. But this year I'm really excited with the lineup. Because it's the 65th, we've got a bunch of artists that have played the festival.

Over the past forever coming back, but we also have a lot of exciting new artists that have never played the festival before as well. I mean, it's kind of like that every year, I think, because Mariposa is really good about bringing people back and paying respect to the history of the festival and pairing people up with more seasoned artists with newer artists.

Um, we've got the sheep dogs on Friday, we've got paper kites they're also playing on the Friday. Langhorn Slim The [00:25:00] Saturday main stage is going to be amazing. We've got Holly Cole, Elie Sapie, Waxahatchee, and Iron and Wine.

So that's going to be amazing that day. Sunday Ron Sexsmith is coming Bob Snyder, who is like a folk musicians, folk musician is coming out of retirement to play.

Spencer: Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and then a very special presentation, a retrospective Mariposa set headed by Serena Ryder with Martha Wainwright and Julian Taylor.

So they're going to kind of come all together on the main stage for the headline and play some of their own songs, but also play some of the, you know, most beloved songs from Mariposa performers over the past 65 years. It's a new, really nice way to close out the festival. It's really great.

Hayden is coming. Jane Sivory is going to be there. Rock Plaza Central is back together to come play this year. And they've never played the festival before. And I'm really excited about that. Irish Mythen is going to be back. it's coming together quite nicely.

Rosalyn: That's incredibly exciting and congratulations on putting it together. [00:26:00] Absolutely fantastic lineup. I know everyone is super excited about it. And if you haven't seen the full lineup yet go to mariposafolk.com get your tickets, get your camping spots, whatever you got to do. Spencer, thank you so much for chatting with us today.