Behind Lovefest’s ongoing success, and the success of so many festivals and community events around the province, is a dedicated corps of volunteers. 

According to Amy Robertson, who oversaw this part of the festival, “We had about 60 volunteers this year. They were doing everything from making sure that  parking is safe out on the road and that the blue bus has a good place to park. Volunteers sell tickets, help the vendors and they’re setting up. They do a lot of decoration for this event, help promote it, sell T- shirts, and just ensure that everybody has a good, safe time.” 

CC: Are there any really good volunteer stories I should know about? 

Amy Robertson: “Every year Dancing Wolf puts together a decor team, and he works tirelessly, the day before and the morning of, to make sure that it’s just a beautiful experience for everybody. He gets about ten people on his crew and they usually paint a few new signs every year that are real showpieces.” 

Rick Bockner, one of the Festival’s principal organizers, talked about the ‘huge amount of work’ he does. 

“The physical look of Lovefest is largely designed and created by Dancing Wolf and his team. They do a great job every year. He shows up with trunks full of fabrics and colourful things and they work with those ingredients.”

CC: Are all those paintings around the edges his? 

Rick Bockner:  “Some of them are prints. I don’t think any of them are direct paintings. I think they’re fabrics that he finds and figures would be useful. Most of it’s on cloth and they’re not really framed up like paintings. He’s got a couple of big prints, like the forest print with the tree that’s on the right, the elfin forest scene there, But they do the signage, they do the greetings, they do the entries. Really big deal. 

One of the other people Rick mentioned was Mark Lombard, who told Cortes Currents: 

“I love music festivals and I love helping out at music festivals because it’s another layer of enjoying the music. You  get to know the people that you’re working with and that are putting it on. The Lovefest on Cortes is awesome. You get to hang out with Rex, and Rick, and Sandy, and Amy, and the whole gang. it’s just really fun.”

(The Sandy he just mentioned is Sandy Keith, who is in the sound booth. He is another one of those people whose name keeps popping up.) 

CC: How many Lovefests have you been to?  

Mark Lombard: “I think I’ve been to them all.” 

CC: What are you doing?

Mark Lombard: “Whatever needs to be done really, the same every year, but this year I helped set up the stage, and the roof for the stage, and helped get the sound gear in place for Sandy and then I helped Dancing Wolf to get all the decorations up yesterday and this morning.”  

I encountered Soma Feldmar while she was inspecting the porta potties, and yes, that included cleaning one of them. 

“I volunteer for Lovefest because I have a great desire to serve my community and this seems like a wonderful way to do it.  I have the opportunity to help people have a good time and that makes me happy. I think it’s a good way to be a human,” she said. 

“I coordinate the food vendors. I also do that because my aunt Suzanne lived here for 30 years and was a cook on the island. So I like to be involved in food service, sort of in honour and remembrance of her.” 

“The main crew, the founders, Rick and Rex: I’ve known them for, goodness, over 30 years. It’s nice to put my abilities to use in serving musicians in the community and the arts and crafts people, and yeah, it’s just a whole bunch of love.”

Toni Smorodin had one foot in a garbage can when I found her. She was compacting garbage and didn’t want to be interviewed, but said it was okay to take her picture. 

You will find a number of volunteer pictures in the written version of this story. 

Carina Verhoeve seemed to be at, or in the general vicinity of, the Lovefest booth for most of the 5 hours I was at the festival.

Howie Roman has been the backbone of Cortes Radio’s volunteer corps for as long as I have known him. He broke his leg earlier this year and this is the first time he has sat behind the booth. You can see his picture alongside Bryan McKinnon, President of the Cortes Radio Society, and some of the station’s better known DJs.   

 There are dozens of stories for every one mentioned in this report. 

However, arriving at Linnaea Farm half an hour before the festival began, I saw Eli, Immanuel, Isa and Francis  McKenty on stage. The Awakeneers are not playing at this year’s festival, so I asked Immanuel why they were there. 

“We were playing at MusicFest this year, so we didn’t get our usual yearly quota of sound crewing,” he explained.

“We happened to be on the island for Lovefest and  one of the first things I did was send an email to Rex and Rick, ‘Hey, do you need anyone else on the sound crew this year? Because we’d be happy to help out.’” 

“So we have Eli, our oldest brother, who’s stage managing. Then crewing for him, along with Sandy, is Isa and Francis and myself, Immanuel.  The same four of us who often work at the Barn Stage at Music Fest and on your stage when we’re not playing there.” 

CC: Are you talking about the Vancouver island MusicFest that was in Courtenay last month?

Immanuel: “In Courtney, yes. We’ve been volunteering there together for almost 10 years now and we cycled through various different volunteer crews. The last five years, or so, we’ve all been on sound crew together at the Barn Stage.”

“It’s a lot of fun volunteering with the four of us together because we’ve spent a lot of time working together and enjoy being around each other and work fairly well as a team.”

“Glad to help out with this wonderful local festival. I think it’s a great thing for Cortes to have a music festival on the island.” 

CC: When have you been in the sound crew at Lovefest before? 

Immanuel: “Eli’s run the stage here a few years in a row. I volunteered as sound crew quite a few years back, I think 2018 perhaps, or 2019, shortly after it started. I actually have my original yellow Lovefest shirt, which I almost brought today. I got it out of the storage unit, but I figured it might not blend in very well on the stage. So I opted for a mellow grey tone instead.” 

The Awakeneers played for the 2018 and 2019 Lovefests.

 Immanuel did not mention that he and Isa would be playing again that day. They returned to the stage with Jemma Hicken as the latest incarnation of her band, ‘The Good Thing,’ albeit only for this year’s Lovefest. (See top of page)

She explained, “The good thing just yesterday became Isa and Immanuel McKenty, because I texted Immanuel saying, ‘I’m having this fantasy about you guys being up on stage with me tomorrow, and I’m wondering if it’s too crazy that you learn all the songs with me tomorrow morning, right before the show’ and so they did it. They’re amazing. That’s the whole story.”

Top photo credit: Immanuel McKenty, Jemma Hicken and Isa McKenty playing on the stage designed by Dancing Wolf’s team. Dave Blinzinger speaking with another musician off to the right – Roy L Hales photo

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