Boots and Hearts Music Festival announces move to Barrie area
The Boots and Hearts Music Festival has announced that their 2015 festival will move to a new home at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, Ontario. The festival will take place August 6th – 9th, and Florida Georgia Line has already been announced as one of the headline performances.
The move to Burl’s Creek will allow Boots and Hearts to expand capacity and camping grounds, said Shannon McNevan, executive director of festival promoter Republic Live. “We needed to expand our camping and our festival. That was our biggest complaint from fans, is that we didn’t have enough,” said McNevan. “The newly renovated grounds at Burl’s Creek will allow us to offer way more camping and add to the amazing #Bootslife community onsite,” he added.
Burl’s Creek was recently sold to the majority shareholder of Republic Live, which is good for the region, said Tourism Barrie executive director Kathleen Trainor. “We are thrilled to learn that Burl’s Creek has been sold to a concert promoter,” said Trainor. “The Wynne government is investing heavily into making Ontario the music capital of Canada and having a major concert venue in the region is good for Barrie. Molson Park’s concerts brought millions of dollars in revenue into Barrie every summer and now we can have a whole new generation of music lovers coming into the region for music festivals.”
The success and impact of Boots and Hearts is a testament to the opportunity provided by live music. Last year’s festival had an economic impact of approximately $17 million in the Bowmanville area, drawing approximately 35,000 country music fans to the region over three days.
Music Canada has promoted the value of music tourism to regions and municipalities throughout Ontario, and identified music tourism as one of five critical areas for development in our Next Big Bang report. Noting that music tourism and marketing offer rewarding opportunities for economic growth and brand development at the provincial, regional and city levels, the report considers how we can harness the power of live music as an economic asset by developing a comprehensive music tourism strategy.
Music Canada’s Graham Henderson will speak on the opportunities for music tourism next month at the 2014 Ontario Tourism Summit, in a keynote presentation entitled Ontario’s Music Tourism Pitch.
OntarioLiveMusic.ca, Ontario’s live music portal, will also be on-site at the Ontario Tourism Summit, showcasing the comprehensive live music listings to hundreds of tourism professionals from across the province.
The Boots and Hearts experience is on display in the festival’s 2014 After Movie, embedded below. For tickets or more information, visit http://bootsandhearts.com/.
Music Canada