SYDNEY, N.S. — If the numbers are any indication, the Celtic Colours International Festival has good reason to expand their event for the 2020 season.
“Last year we were at 93 per cent of our tickets being sold, which is pretty much a sellout,” said festival executive director Mike MacSween on Monday. “So we knew coming into this year that we would need to look at some strategic expansion of the festival.”
Two more concerts have been added, bringing the total to 54 shows being offered this year, MacSween confirmed.
“With the exception of the opening and closing days we’ve got seven concerts per day,” MacSween said. “We’re getting close to the maximum of concerts that we can host during the nine days of the festival. But here we are yet again — we’re managing to expand a bit and this year we do have two new venues to incorporate into the mix including the United Heritage Church in Sydney and L’Arche Cape Breton Gathering Room in Iron Mines.”
This year’s Celtic Colours International Festival takes place Oct. 9-17 all around Cape Breton. Although the festival will be holding 54 concerts in 35 communities, the exact performers for each show won’t be known until Friday, June 19 when the full lineup will be released. However, the dates of when the concerts will be held in each community are now available on the website so people can get an idea of how they may want to schedule their time.
“It’s for planning purposes for everybody, whether it’s locals or visitors coming from somewhere else,” said MacSween. “In terms of our concerts, we can’t at this point obviously release the entirety of the artists and the concerts and the community cultural experiences — that will all come later in the season. For planning purposes for everybody, we want to make sure that people understand where the festival will be taking place and they can plan around that.”
The festival will be celebrating its 24th year and continues to be popular with locals and visitors alike. According to MacSween, about 36 per cent of last year’s audience were from Cape Breton and another 17 per cent came from other parts of Nova Scotia. Twenty-five per cent came from other parts of Canada, 19 per cent from the United States and 3 per cent from other parts of the world.
“About 14,648 patrons purchase tickets to the concerts,” said MacSween. “The total number of tickets sold last year was 24,007.
“They’re big numbers and we’re obviously looking to grow those numbers a bit this year by expanding the festival slightly and we saw a bit of an increase last year in the number of Cape Bretoners participating in the festival which we thought was great. We certainly hope to see that trend continue this year.
The venues this year range in size from the 140-seat Christmas Island Fire Hall to Centre 200 in Sydney which can seat up to 6,500. The smaller concerts are often the first to sell out and they’re also the heart of the festival, he says.
“These are places where, if it wasn’t for those traditions continuing year-round, we wouldn’t be here celebrating Celtic Colours in year 24, working with those same groups. We’re able to share the benefits of the festival with some of these community groups but we also benefit from their actions and activities year-round.”
These smaller communities are also well known for their related events such as community meals held on the day of the concert which have also proven to be popular.
Tickets will go on sale Tuesday, July 7 at 10 a.m. ADT. And if you want to attend some of this year’s events, MacSween advises you to buy your tickets as soon as they become available.
“We know Cape Bretoners aren’t thinking of October now but we certainly hope that they will and then step up in June and July to find what they like to do and purchase their tickets a bit earlier than they normally would so they can get into those concerts. We hate to disappoint anybody, particularly locals. We want to make sure they have full access to the festival as anybody else.
"The key is to purchase those tickets early.”
