Zooming the Pandemic - Episode 6 - Silent Summer

New Westminster writer Deni Loubert continues her series about New Westminster and the Covid-19 Pandemic. This time she looks at the just passed summer, silent because of the lack of live music events and street festivals that usually predominate life in the summer.

She begins by talking to two organizers of street festivals in New Westminster about the early days of the pandemic, when it began to be obvious that all outdoor events would need to be cancelled.

She discusses this with Angie Whitfield, Program and Events Manager for the Downtown New Westminster BIA, organizer of Fridays on Front and the growing and legendary Columbia Street Food Truck Festival. Angie talks about both the difficult decision made by the board as well as a solution that would keep locals engaged with a downtown hard hit by closures and restrictions. They launch a scavenger hunt that takes individuals and families through the downtown area each weekend and highlights both downtown New West business and local public art.

Also, on hand is Douglas Smith, organizer for the Uptown Live event and Managing Partner of Alliance West Sports and Entertainment. As an event organizer, Douglas has a unique view of the impact of the pandemic on his industry and the locals who look forward to the summer event. His solution is a special live show at the iconic Massey Theatre, host to live theatre and music that has been dark since the beginning of the pandemic. They put together a series of live concerts with six bands that showcases both the concert venue and the bands, streamed live and available after for everyone to enjoy.

Smith outlines his plans for the following summer, when he predicts that many will still be uneasy going to a large gathering of several thousand for live music. With cameras to broadcast a live stream of Uptown Live he envisions a new way to bring live music to everyone in the New Westminster area and beyond. He also talks about the migration of many live music venues to paid live stream events as the pandemic continues.

Susan Greig has a different set of problems to solve, as the owner of the Braid Street Studios. Situated in an old distillery, it housed studios for 50 artists from painters and jewelry designers to singers and writers before the pandemic. But with the closure of public spaces and the cancellation of the weddings and events that helped to keep the doors open, Susan is struggling to keep art alive. She tells interviewer Loubert that she is down to 18 artists, as they begin to host online Paint Night Parties and restart their monthly Open House. With plans already in place to move the studio out of the building, scheduled for demolition next year as the entire block is being developed into a school/retail/condo complex, she will need to get creative to keep her cohort of artists together.

Finally – a discussion with C.S. (Fergie) Fergusson, costume designer for theatre and Darren Snesar, bass player for rock band Alice Hardy. As creatives on the forefront of live entertainment, they talked about the fears and obstacles that came up for them as the pandemic became a reality. From theatres closing to music venues going out of business, the challenges were great. Fergie talks about her own struggles with getting her industry to understand that full closure was the only answer to a pandemic, something she understood from her early days working with emergency crews. Darren talks about the luck of having a barn for rehearsal space and the frustrations of writing an album through digital communication. But even going digital has its challenges, and both artists talk about what worked what didn’t and what they think will be the new direction for their industries.

The episode closes with a hope that artists and organizers will find new ways to adapt to this continuing pandemic, as the end still seems a long way off. But creativity is always hopeful, and so is our narrator that in the end we will all find our ways through this pandemic and rekindle our joy in life.