While only in its fourth year, Calgary’s Sled Island has quickly become one of the city’s most significant and popular music festivals and this year promises to elevate Zak Pashak’s brainchild even further.
Pashak, festival director and founder, views Sled Island as a galvanizing event for a downtown core that often empties out as soon as the corporate world shuts down for the day.
“If people can get comfortable being downtown and they have reasons to be there and other people to interact with, it brings a lot of life to downtown.”
Held over four days, 190 artists from all over the world will take over downtown in various venues with Olympic Plaza hosting big-name acts such as Girl Talk, Built To Spill, The Melvins and Dinosaur Jr. on Friday and Saturday night.
With 25 venues, Sled Island is truly an all-encompassing festival, which Pashak believes benefits the city on a number of levels.
“I think the festival helps support local businesses by encouraging people to explore the local music scene and challenge themselves to get out and involved in the city,” Pashak told GetDown.ca. “I think it helps bring pride to some Calgarians. It also attracts people from other places to come check out what is going on here.”
Sled Island has been continually growing in size and format since its inaugural run in 2007 and Pashak is hoping it evolves into even more of an interactive event.
“I think it could start happening in some back alleys downtown if we could get the city interested in the idea. The main site programming could get to be a bigger street party.”
For schedule and venue information, visit www.sledisland.com
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