Victoria’s loss is the Southern Interior’s gain as one of Vancouver Island’s biggest summer festivals is moving to Kamloops.
The Victoria International Buskers Festival is departing the B.C. capital, with no festival in 2017, and re-emerging as the Kamloops International Buskers Festival for the 2018 summer festival season.
“While I am sad to see Victoria lose such a great family-oriented event, I am happy at the same time that the International Buskers Festival will live on and put lots of smiles on faces of British Columbians and visitors alike”, said John Vickers, former executive director of the Buskers Society.
Vickers said that despite their best efforts, complications made it impossible to continue to operate the festival in Greater Victoria.
“One of the issues with International Buskers, with its large family following, is that being able to accommodate the volume of visitors can be challenging. We subsequently expanded our relocation search across the Island and then opened the opportunity up to municipalities across the province. Once we did that, we had several municipalities vying for the festival and ultimately the municipality of Kamloops was given the nod for 2018.”
To keep the busker celebration alive in Victoria, the Downtown Victoria Business Association announced the innaugual Downtown Victoria Buskers Festival, set to be held July 11 to 16, with stages throughout downtown Victoria.
