Local musicians, businesses, and volunteers band together for a weekend of music
Where do you hold a music festival in downtown Guelph? How about at a café, bar, or some local clothing stores? Charlotte Moore and Alanna Gurr, co-founders of Holy Smokes Music Festival, decided to break from the traditional music venue by holding their weekend-long event at several local businesses, including The Common Café, Take Time Vintage, Kennedy Park, and Outpost Vintage.
“We knew we wanted women and non-binary identifying musicians, but we also wanted to look at it with more of a holistic view,” Moore told The Ontarion. “Just from being in the music industry, we know that women tech crew members, bookers, promoters, and women-owned venues are very underrepresented.”
As friends, Moore and Gurr often spoke about the lack of female representation in the music industry. However, they didn’t know that their conversations would eventually lead to the creation of Holy Smokes Music Festival.
“[Starting our own music festival] was never something that I didn’t think I could do, but maybe something I never thought about making space in my life to do,” said Gurr.
“Those feelings from our own [experiences as musicians in the industry] have spurred this want to create space for other people as well,” continued Moore. “We talked about that for a long time, but not specifically as a festival. The festival kind of happened pretty quick.”
The festival boasts 17 artistic performers over two days — including Guelph locals Annie Sumi, Frosted Pits, VERSA, TransStar, DJ Junglecat, and DJ M’Damn D — as well as a comedy show at The Making-Box and an after party fundraiser for Guelph Girls Rock Camp.
Holy Smokes Music Festival runs from Oct. 12 to 13 — much of the programming is free or pay-what-you-can. Gurr and Moore hope that by making the shows accessible, they can encourage students as well as families to come out to the festival.
Photo by Karen K. Tran/The Ontarion