Tourism North Bay Chair Jake Lacourse is calling it the “Unfestival.”
Lacourse says the organization is taking the lead of a collective of like-minded groups working toward a common goal. That goal, according to Lacourse, is to start small, include interested parties, and see what can be made of a community event starting from the ground up.
Festivities will take place at the waterfront and in the downtown core from June 13-16 for a weekend of fun memories. What will take place that weekend? No one really knows yet. Lacourse says this is the beauty of the Unfestival. It will be entirely planned and presented according to the whims and visions of the proponents.
The former hotel boss admits he has been known to take on social media critics when it comes to tourism and the demise of the previous festival. Lacourse says he welcomes those who criticized the Civic Holiday weekend incarnation of the festival to bring their ideas to the table, albeit for a smaller-scale grassroots festival set up.
After Summer in the Park was laid to rest in recent weeks, Lacourse and Tourism North Bay Director Steve Dreany have formed a collective that includes Creative Industries, the Downtown Improvement Area, and the local Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re essentially looking at it as a collaborative of organizations who want to move North Bay forward and who want to celebrate North Bay,” says Lacourse.
Dreany adds, “We ask that any group, organization, or event that might wish to take advantage of the traffic that can be generated by our collective, reach out to us at Tourism North Bay for inclusion in the weekend’s programming and our co-operative marketing efforts.”
The Unfestival has no strict end goal in mind, heck, it doesn’t even have an official name yet. What it does have going for it is a willingness to start small, be open to ideas, and a leadership collective ready to hold on for the ride to see where the citizens take this.
