When you consider that the CNE Bandshell is located less than a couple of hundred metres North East of Live Nation’s Budweiser Stage, you can understand the monumental task that Emily Kempe and her team are faced with when they try to book the entertainment talent for this year’s Canadian National Exhibition August 16th to September 2nd.
In that golden era of Michael Cohl’s CPI agency in the 1980s and 90’s the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Elton John and David Bowie used to highlight each night. But of course, those were hard ticket add-on admissions and when Live Nation took over and moved their heavyweight lineups to the Budweiser Stage, things just became more challenging for personnel left with trying to book talent for the two-week festival on eight separate stages.
“Bud Stage is definitely our competition,” noted CNE’s event promoter Emily Kempe. They have the budgets they have the capacity and the ability to charge a hard ticket to attract the big names. We have to deal with the economics of competing against them. Working with limited budgets and finding who is available. People don’t understand just how expensive it is to book name talent.”
Kempe, whose team is responsible for not only booking talent onto the main bandshell, but also the Midway Stage located each afternoon in front of the Enbridge building featuring some of the best Tribute Bands, and the Country Stage featuring two Country Music bands each night, notes she spends a lot of time researching other festivals and scouting a variety of different talent for her venues. The challenge is to find artists who are affordable, available and appeal to a wide variety of genres.
“We have bands that a lot of people will recognize like April Wine, Down With Webster, Big Wreck, Sloan, and The New Pornographers, but we are also looking at performers who are affordable, available and appeal to a wide variety of genres,” she noted. “We have our Drag Extravaganza on for the second year (August 20th),” she noted. “You don’t have to be a part of the gay community to appreciate the production value of this show. It went down so well last year that we had to bring it back.”
Kempe, who took over the event management position last November claims that two of her personal favourites are American Grammy award winner and former Alabama Shakes frontwoman, Brittany Howard (set to appear August 17th) and Montreal band, Half Moon Run (scheduled for August 26th). “We are thrilled to be able to book Brittney, and Half Moon Run are like an indie folk band, they bring something different to our lineup.”
Finding something different for each night is the main challenge for Kempe and her team whether it’s a tribute band for Bob Marley (August 22nd), American rapper Big Boi (August 25th) or the Voices Of Classic Rock show (feating former artists with Asia, Journey., Boston and Chicago) which will close this year’s CNE September 1st.
“I have a pre-set budget so I look at different days and try to gauge just what days will get the most people. Kempe noted. “We might not get a big crowd on a Monday so I will plan accordingly.”
For the complete line up & schedule, visit theex.com
