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By NATHAN LOCKHART
Staff Writer

I’m supposed to sit here and let you know about local music festivals. How do they portray the local scene?

But if you don’t already know, then how do I describe? Yes local music festivals happen. Here in Edmonton, we have a multitude of them. Some are known world-wide, some aren’t. But do these festivals truly grasp the “local” scene, or are they here just to focus on the music, no matter what?

Well, in my opinion, it’s a mix of both.

Without bringing in not-so-local talent, you wouldn’t grow any opportunity to convince people of how good any local talent is. But bringing in huge names overshadows any attempt at being a truly “local” festival. I see it as a catch 22 kind of thing. Is there a balance between the two that can be held?

In my experience at concerts and festivals, there is definitly a true balance of this. It all depends on what you call “local”, and if it fits the bill. Some of the festivals I have been to have multiple stages, so many bands can play at once. One concert out here, called Stage 13, had three different stages, and of course some of them were local bands playing.

Music festivals in general have to have a sense of community. It’s only natural to anyone who has been in a band, that a sense of family is important. It’s a sense of family that brings people to festivals. A sense of connection, a feeling of "we're all here for the same reason".

A music festival is just a family reunion on a grander scale. The new bands are like the children of the family. They herald good things, as this means the family is growing. And the older bands look out for those bands, and teach them the importance of giving back to the even younger bands. This is why it’s important to bring a sense of ‘local” in any festival. It brings a community aspect that is always needed.

It’s strange, because every festival I have ever been to, I’ve felt that the most important thing is continuity. As long as everyone is there for the same reason, I feel “local” has already been achieved. It’s hard to say whether or not a standard has been achieved in maintaining independent or local talent, because it’s also so hard when everything feels like a community. So in part, local music festivals achieve local by bringing the sense of local, no matter how big, or how small, the venue is.

So, in the end, it's like I've said: local music festivals are important to the continued growth of a local scene, because it offers the audience members a chance to see some old favourites that brought them along, and to see some new bands that will bring them back!