Rainbow Trout Music Festival reels in for 2020

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This article was published 13/08/2020 (1819 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What would have been hundreds of campers descending on Oroseau Rapids Park in St. Malo with coolers and camping gear this weekend will now be a quieter site due to the cancellation of Rainbow Trout Music Festival.

The novice festival which would have been in its 12th installation had big plans for this year’s musical line up, according to its artistic director Ben Jones.

“We expanded our reach for out of town artists and had a 50/50 lineup this year, so just under half the bands were going to be from out of province,” Jones explained. “It was going to be a really fun opportunity to share Manitoba music with awesome talented bands from out of town.”

The independently-ran festival’s origin stemmed from a group of friends camping out at the site for a weekend and quickly realizing they wanted to make it an annual event on a larger scale. Now, 12 years later hundreds of music lovers line their cars along the gravel of Rapids Road to enjoy a weekend of music, art and no cellphone reception.

The three-day experience features Manitoba musicians, art installations and food vendors to entertain the crowd in between swimming and floating on the banks of the Roseau River which rides along the campsite, the ever-popular open mic that takes place for performers of all talents to engage with campers, and other pop-up activities that surely keeps the weekend interesting.

Rainbow Trout also puts a great deal of focus on the safety of their campers, having an extensive safer spaces and harm reduction policy.

“This is not to say that other festivals don’t take safety seriously, as I know they do. It’s just to say that when thinking about our top priorities, building a safe and inclusive event is really high on our list,” Jones said.

The decision to ultimately cancel the event in April was hard, but Jones said it came down to following the values of the festival itself.

“The first is music but the second is having a safe space where people can enjoy that music in a healthy and danger-free environment,” he said. “With the recommendations of Health Canada and honestly, the feelings of our peers, family and friends, the right decision was to postpone for the sake of the safety of our attendees.”

While Jones could not divulge what Rainbow Trout will look like next year – or if there will even be a festival to attend due to public health recommendations – he hopes to come back bigger and better so attendees can once-again start the infamous, campsite-wide “Trout! Trout! Trout!” chant.

“As long as we can do it in a healthy and safe way.”