Spences Bridge is gearing up for its fifth annual Desert Daze Festival Aug. 8-9, with two days of music and workshops, shopping, and fun and games!
The festival is a little scaled back from previous years, but is still jam packed with music and fun!
Friday kicks off at 3 pm with the Siska Drummers. This group of Indigenous drummers opens the festival with a prayer and a welcome song.
The Festival’s four main headliner bands this year are North Country Gentlemen and Magic Rooster Blues Band on the Friday night, and Terrence Jack and The Johnson Brothers on Saturday night. Check out their Facebook pages or look on YouTube to have a listen to the treat that’s in store!
The afternoon schedule is filled with a huge variety of local and not so local talent: the ever popular Flat Busted, and of Girls with Guitars fame Nadine Davenport, Ashcroft’s funky sound of Spiritus Mundii, and the sweet voice of Haley Hendrykx from Oregon will also grace our stage, as will many more talented musicians. Something new this year is the entertaining Mill Girl Follies! These Can Can dancers from Clinton will dance their hearts out to the delight of the crowd!
Vendors and volunteer are needed for this event; please go to the website for details www.desertdaze.ca. Also check out the Facebook page and “like” it!
It’s not all about the music though; the Festival celebrates the bounty that this sundrenched country provides. Watermelon spitting and apple bobbing contests, pickling and tomato canning workshops – and vendors supplying the local produce they grow. You will also find fine jewellery, clothing and crafts for sale.
Aside from the canning and pickling workshops there will be a facilitated drumming circle jam, so bring your djembes, hand drum, rattles and shakers! Local beader, Erin Aleck, is offering a beading workshop – in less than an hour you will walk away with a piece of beading that you made yourself! If beading isn’t your thing, then what about birch bark baskets? This workshop is being offered by artist Carolyn Lytton, and you will walk away with a little basket of your own!
This is a family event and to that end there is a supervised children’s area with sprinklers to run in and games to play! Also at 5 on Saturday there is a science experiment workshop for kids!
For further information including ticket prices, please go to www.desertdaze.ca or call 250-458-2282.
Submitted