Festival season in the Maritimes is over, and the only way I can describe it was “Absolutely awesome!” This year the electronic scene had a fair amount of festivals and mostly all the djs and producers from the provinces where showcased. In this article we are going to recap the highlights of this season and announce the winners of the 2015 festival season.

 

The Recap

The EDM kids are rising

This year we saw a trend of that big electro room sound that most people called “EDM” or “Progressive House”. Now I don’t think this is house or progressive in any way but when something sticks, it sticks.  There were a lot of EDM festivals this year, the sound was all over the place and the crowd was pretty young. There was a lot of 16-18 year olds fist pumping all over the Maritimes this summer and djs like Mekelo and The L3d’s where mostly in all of those type of events they pretty much killed it this year when it came to that type of sound.

Lack of Underground Sounds

This year if you didn’t go to festivals like Evolve, Future Forest or Midsummer Madness you did not hear to much underground dance music since it was not the strongest this year. Sure we can argue that we got that Dubstep bass sound but that has become kind of mainstream. There was not a lot of Underground house or techno going around. Only in a few festivals and even amongst those, some djs went for that mainstream commercial familiar sound instead of the unknown more robust long tracks.  In part is disappointing since that sound is the core of dance music but hopefully next year things will step up.

New Brunswick vs everybody

 

This year New Brunswick managed to have not 1 or 2 but 9 (Yes 9) festivals that focused on a full electronic music stage.   A lot of them were new, like Wet Baker, Neon Fusion and others who are just developing their groove like Project L. Then you have the veteran festivals like Midsummer Madness and Collaborate and Listen.

What’s going on with PEI?

Now we may be wrong, but when it comes to PEI, the crowds were a no show. We didn’t see any festivals or even any dj from the island that preform in major festival which is a shame since there is some buzz around guys like Ramzoid. Hopefully next year we will see more including a full electronic festival in the island.

 

The Winners

Old Time Favorite:

Evolve

You can’t really go wrong with Evolve. It is one of the longest running festivals in the Maritimes and it’s the most well-known. This year it went with a little bit of media controversy for the drug testing and an unfortunate death of a person that suffer from epilepsy. But overall evolve always manages to bring the best of maritime djs and producers and it is still the darling festival of Nova Scotia.

Best Stage Setup:

Helmfest

Although it lacked the crowd and the local talent, Helmfest was the only urban festival in the Maritimes and it had the best stage setup of any festival in the area. The setup is something that you see in big festivals like Ultra or Tomorrowland. Money can’t buy you love but it sure can buy you one hell of a stage!!

Festival on the Rise:

Acadianland

This took place in Edmundson NB and it was absolute craziness!!  It had a really diverse crowd of kids from the US, Quebec and of course New Brunswick and it’s an all age festival (16 and up).  The sound was mainly big room edm, trying to replicate the big festival feeling.  If you are a 16 or 18 year old kid that has dreams of ilesoniq and Veld and don’t have a lot money or live in Atlantic Canada this was your place to be.  This second version of the festival just got bigger with a pretty good show.

 

Best Maritime Electronic Festival:

Future Forest

Out of all the festivals we went this year, this had it all! This was pretty much electronic music heaven with 3 stages and all the genres of electronic music you wanted. From DnB to Techno, House, Deep House, Electro, and Dubstep even Chill out everything was there at the same time. There was no hassle for the people to have a good time, and there were no major incidents.  This festival had a lot of local and International underground acts that connected with the crowd even if you didn’t know who they were. Future Forest was the best time you could have for 3 days in the middle of nowhere.

 

I gotta say big ups to the organizers and promoters this year it was pretty great hopefully next year they can raise the bar and put electronic music on the map for more people in other provinces to come and enjoy the maritime scene its small but we can hold our own.