Music fans mourned last week as 2018’s Otalith Music Festival was cancelled.
In an announcement made on Thursday, the Otalith Music Festival Society announced the festival would not be appearing this year.
Technical Director Jonny Jenkins told the Westerly News the society’s key members have other responsibilities to juggle, and added he is about to welcome his first child in May.
“The end of it is that you have volunteers running a festival that could be a full time job,” he said. “It was never to line our own pockets with money at the end of this thing, so there comes a point where you have to sit down and think, ‘Do you have the time to do this properly and also not get paid to do it?’ and that wasn’t really a reality this year for all of us. We just couldn’t do that.”
The popular, family friendly, outdoor music festival, began in 2013 and was dubbed Otalith after a fish’s ear bone. Its organizers wanted the festival’s profits to go towards initiatives they believed were important locally and, in its five years, Otalith donated roughly $15,000 to organizations like Pacific Wild, the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust and the Jamie Collins Legacy Fund.
“Otalith was an idea to bring internationally renowned music to the Coast to raise money for local initiatives and have a good time at the same time,” Jenkins said. “We wanted to take it one step further than what already existed and in the process bring another element of culture to our little bubble out here.”
Word of the festival spread and, in its fourth year, its reputation took off with ticket sales matching its capacity.
“In the last two years, we did hit that and it was really 2,000 people coming to enjoy the festival and be a part of it,” he said.
He added that while the festival’s popularity grew among music fans, volunteers and sponsors did not grow at the same rate.
“We always did hope that maybe there would be more buy-in from the community,” he said. “A lot of people were really stoked on it, but some actual monetary help to keep it going to the extent that it was, that was hard. It’s hard to sell a boutique small festival to sponsors.”
He wouldn’t rule out an Otalith revival in 2019, but said more volunteers would be needed, not just to help out during the event, but to help organize it.
“To do Otalith in the same capacity and have it look the same as it always has, we do need some help,” he said. “You’re not getting paid for it. So, you have to take time out of your money-making life in order to dedicate the hours. Asking Tofino locals and Ucluelet locals to do that in the middle of summer is a lot to ask.”
He added taking at least a year off could help the society’s members recuperate.
“You end a festival and you’ve kind of got to get on [the next one] right away,” he said. “We always, sort of, felt like we were behind one step. So, we’re also taking a year to maybe allow ourselves to catch our breath and get a step forward as opposed to always being a step behind.”
In the statement released on Thursday announcing the festival’s hiatus, the society thanked everyone who purchased tickets for past events and the volunteers, local businesses and bands who helped make the festival happen from 2013-2017. The society also thanked local RCMP for their support of the event.
“There’s lots of people that we missed and I just want them to know that Otalith loves everyone who was ever involved,” Jenkins said.
When Thursday’s announcement was posted online, fans quickly began expressing their disappointment, which Jenkins found heartwarming as it showed the impact Otalith had during its tenure.
“Everyone’s, for lack of a better word, a little bit hungover [after each festival] so you don’t get people reaching out saying, ‘Thank you’ and all that stuff. So, sometimes it’s really hard to gauge if people are really happy and if people are really stoked on the festival,” he said. “It’s not nice to see people bummed, but it’s nice to see that people were genuinely into it and genuinely into what we were doing.”
