(Y95 News photo)
When Phil Demille first conceived the idea of featuring local musicians on Yarmouth’s waterfront, it was a humble idea.
The idea was to have a few performers, maybe for one weekend a summer. It very quickly grew to a three weekend event ,starting on Friday evenings.
It has brought local musicians and performers bringing many genres of music to very appreciative and growing audiences.
Y95 News Director Gary Nickerson spoke with DeMille as he and his son Shawn were packing up Monday morning after the 13th Coal Shed Music Festival and we asked him about this year.
“Well, you always say better than the year before but I think it’s our best effort yet. There were consistently great crowds from beginning to end. The night crowds were up and I’m surprised because we were a bit concerned with the boats not running, we thought that would knock our attendance back by a bit, but it didn’t. We seem to have more and more growing support from the Valley and the South Shore. I bumped into people here from Kentville, Windsor, Wolfville, Annapolis, Bridgewater.”
We asked DeMille why the festival continues to be so successful year after year.
“Well, I think the big part of it is the fact there’s no attendance price. I think, without getting into names, I know some of the festivals are suffering because they’re charging exorbitant fees to get in, so I think that’s a big part of it. I think also that , we have such a wide variety of entertainment here. We have not focused in a particular direction. We try to offer everything. This year we had jazz for the first time, we had old blues for the first time. I really didn’t know what to expect but we had a great crowd and a very receptive crowd. I’ve seen people, local people, that I’ve never seen before.”
In lieu of an admission price the Coal Shed Music Festival accepts donations to the Yarmouth Food Bank and the School Breakfast Program.
“My wife looks after the deposits but I would say our deposits are about on par with last year which means we’ll come out of it with a little bit of surplus and of course we do the Christmas trees at home Hardware at Christmas time. We should certainly be able to give as much to the schools as we did last year and hopefully a little more. We are hoping to add on one more school this year. We’re doing the entire county now and I’m hoping to go beyond.”
DeMille says they’re always looking for new sponsors.
“I kind of pumped that during the festival this year. We need to know the money is in place before we get started. I do not want to be put in a position at the end of our festival where we don’t have enough money to pay the bills. That would be embarrassing and would bring an end to our efforts. We pound the pavement looking sponsors. We start in October.”
