Harvest Music Festival kicks off in Fredericton

Harvest Festival kicks off in Fredericton Harvest Festival officially kicked off Tuesday in downtown Fredericton. CTV’s Alyson Samson reports.

FREDERICTON — The city of Fredericton is gearing up for one of its most-anticipated weeks of the year, the Harvest Music Festival.

With the upcoming weekend weather forecast in mind, organizers say it's not the first time the festival has had to deal with a big storm.

"We're kind of used to the uncertainty and the rain,” said Brent Staeben, Harvest Music Festival’s director of music programming.

“I think the week looks pretty good right now, until Saturday, and as everybody knows there's a hurricane in the forecast,” said Staeben. “We don't know where it's going to land or what it's going to mean for us, but we're obviously working up some contingency plans.”

Harvest Music Festival brings in between eight-to-10 million dollars to Fredericton's economy each year and they're hoping the storm doesn't affect that.

"I have a little bit of an inside scoop, so I know that the ticket are [going] really, really well,” said Stephen Lewis, a musician and presenter for the Harvest Music Festival.

“I know that the general vibe for people is that they've been craving a Harvest like before all this pandemic stuff. So I think rain or shine people are excited.”

The city has already been battling weather to get Officers’ Square prepared in time for this year's festival.

“The project was certainly impacted by weather and it put a lot of pressure on in the last couple of weeks, last week in particular,” said Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers.

“So our commitment was to be ready for the MOJO Tent and we hit that milestone, and it was very, very rushed leading up to it to get it done. But, we were all very committed that Harvest be back in Officers’ Square,” she adds.

"Officers’ Square is actually looking pretty close to the way it had in the past,” said Staeben. “The city managed to get all the key components finished in advance of our setting up the tent. What will be new is we have a new floor this year this is temporary, obviously, the city didn't get the chance to get that sodded.”

Harvest Music Festival runs until Sunday, pending any weather cancellations.

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