knowlton hunter

Review of Blue Skies Music Festival

Like Brigadoon for hippies...a trip! Hasn't change...

Like Brigadoon for hippies...a trip! Hasn't changed significantly since it started 45 years ago. A one of a kind experience. It's a music festival where they don't post a lineup of performers in advance and you have to enter a lottery to get tickets. The intention is to stay small (around 3000 or so), partly philosophical, partly the limitation of the physical space and available well water.
An eclectic musical roster - throat singing to rock and roll - with an audience that ranges from old hippies like myself to much younger urbanites and a growing number of teens and sub-teens, many the offspring of parents who have attended for years.
Totally volunteer run and operated...so from the crew at the gate helping direct traffic to the staff at the first aid shack to those who cook meals or keep the outhouses functioning - all volunteers.
Incredibly, the whole operation is run by consensus and delegation of responsibilities to "hats", 40 or so volunteers who direct everything from site work to selection of acts to planning for the future.
Like Brigadoon this magical experience appears near Clarendon, Ontario on the August long weekend as if from thin air. But it is the passion and commitment of many dozens of volunteers that brings it to life.
You have to visit to really, totally understand. Day passes can be had. But to get the full experience you must win the lottery, spend the night camping under the stars, listening to or joining in the music around multiple campfires. Magical! And then, like Brigadoon, gone for another year.