Rough estimates are that about 1,000 people attended the first Sackville Busker Festival last weekend.

One day of the festival was rained out, but from Thursday night to Saturday night, Bridge Street hosted a number of buskers and local performers, as well as vendors and a mini Japanese summer festival put on by Mount Allison’s MASSIE students.

“I was very happy with how it went,” says Wendy Epworth, organizer and Downtown Sackville Business Improvement Area (BIA) vice president. “The performers were pleased, and the spectators. Everyone really seemed to have positive comments and enjoy themselves.”

Busker Lisa Lottie (the Hula Hoop Queen) wows the crowd at the Sackville Busker Festival, August 2022. Photo by Nick Chase.

Epworth says the downtown Sackville BIA has not yet met to discuss future plans, but she’s already thinking of ways to improve the festival in the future. She says she’d like to see more performers and additional events for kids on the street. And she’s definitely made note of the need for washrooms, which was something the short timeline didn’t allow for this year.

“We only had about a week to put out the entire event,” says Epworth. The festival was funded by ACOA’s Revitalize Main Streets Initiative, and although the BIA applied to the program in April, they didn’t receive approval of funding until mid-to-late July.

The company that booked the performers was Premier Entertainment Group, the same company that runs the Halifax International Buskers Festival.

“They were very happy with how it went,” says Epworth. “We will begin talking to them sometime in the fall about sources of funds that can be sought for next year’s festival and changes we might make want to make, or additions to just build it from this year.”

“I think there’s a lot of different ways we can add to it and get more people aware of what’s going on earlier,” says Epworth.

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