Music PEI Week: The dates they are a changin'

Music PEI has decided to end the May Run Music Festival and move Music PEI Week back to its old time in January.

The organization's artist advisory committee made the decision for several reasons.

The move back to a winter celebration brings us all together in the quietest and darkest time of the year.- Catherine MacLellan

"Many of the touring artists are home during January, it's a quiet month, there's not an awful lot going on," said Rob Oakie, executive director of Music PEI.

"But also to just rekindle that sense of community that we're able to develop, you know, in January being one of the only games in town, it allows people to really focus on it. And particularly in the music community."

'Shine a spotlight'

Through a written statement, Catherine MacLellan, chair of the artist advisory committee, gave the sentiment behind the move.

"Many of us in the music community were feeling like we never got to be in the same place at the same time. The artist advisory committee got together to try and find a way for us to reconnect as an organization but also as a community, as a family," she said.

We've been bringing in people from all over the world for the conference and it's worked really well.- Rob Oakie

"We suggest that the move back to a winter celebration brings us all together in the quietest and darkest time of the year to shine a spotlight on all we've accomplished and created."

Oakie said another factor was that attendance in May wasn't noticeably different than when the event was held in January, and even though Music PEI Week is being moved, The Canadian Song Conference will remain in May.

"We had some great events in May but you know the overall feeling was that January was really where we should be," he said.

'It's a real risk'

Oakie said the main reason for moving Music PEI Week from January to May in the first place was to make the Canadian Song Conference a bigger event.

"We wanted to grow our conference and bringing people in internationally in January, first of all who wants to come here in January ... but also just logistically, flights and things like that it's a real risk," he said.

"We've been bringing in people from all over the world for the conference and it's worked really well and it's helped create a lot of good opportunities for our artists."

With the move, Music PEI now has three events spread throughout the year with Music PEI Week in January, the Canadian Song Conference in May and Showcase PEI in September.

Oakie also shared that Credit Union will again be sponsoring the event and submissions for the 2018 Music PEI Awards are now being accepted. 

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