FERGUS – The grounds behind the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex came alive over the weekend for the inaugural Meadows Festival.
The two-day event featured popular artists like Sloan, Boy Golden, James Barker Band, Nate Haller, and the Sheepdogs to name a few.
The highly anticipated festival added to Fergus’ growing number of events and provided an immersive experience for attendees, officials say.
Owner and producer of the festival Collin McKinnon expressed his gratitude for support from the community, sponsors and volunteers, without whom the festival would not have been possible.
“It’s been overwhelming in a good way,” McKinnon told the Advertiser on Friday night.
“It’s a first-year event, so you find all the flaws pretty much immediately, which we’re going to fix moving forward, even as early as tomorrow for the second day of the festival,” he said.
“All in all, spirits are high, and good times were had.”
Around 3,500 people were in attendance on Friday, and more than 5,000 on Saturday.
McKinnon grew up in Rockwood and has always loved the Fergus sportsplex property.
“I’ve always been obsessed with hosting the party. I love music. I love music festivals.,” he said.
“Ever since high school I wanted to host something like this, so it’s kind of one of those lifelong dreams for me.
“We had about three months to announce and pull it off, and we did our best.”
When he’s not running festivals, McKinnon owns and operates Farm League Brewing in Cambridge.
“It’s a craft brewery. We do a lot of stuff with music, concerts, a lot of collab beer for bands,” he said.
“I’ve always wanted to figure out a way to combine beer and music.”
Asked about expanding the festival, McKinnon said he is already thinking about future events.
“The goal, I think, is to double. We could really scale it up with overnight camping, even bigger bands, more food vendors, and turn the whole property into the festival rather than just this one section,” he explained.
“For me, this year, our whole goal was to keep something relatively manageable because you know, selling too many tickets and not being able to handle it is almost worse than not selling enough.
“We wanted to do just enough so that it felt challenging, but still enough that people could have fun,” McKinnon added.
Visit meadowsfest.ca for more information.
