Festival appeals for help

Six years ago, Kris Hargrave and Kia Zahrabi threw a party for friends and family in Zahrabi's father's orchard in Oliver. Following the successful gathering, the two friends decided they might be on to something.

“I grew up in Rock Creek and I knew of the Rock Creek Fairgrounds and I said to Kia, 'If you want to throw a bigger party, I know a site that could be perfect,'” Hargrave said. “The very next summer we booked the site, and thought, 'How hard could it be?'”

Ponderosa Music Festival was born, and it's continued at the same location every year since, with the exception of the summer of 2015, when the encroaching Rock Creek wildfire forced a last-minute cancellation.

“Things were on a big upswing for our third year, things were looking good,” Hargrave said. “We were forced to cancel days before the festival and that really took some wind out of our sails and we took some losses again that year.”

While the future of the festival looked grim, the pair were determined to keep the party going. On Aug. 17, 2018, the festival will celebrate it's fifth year.

“It's been up and down, and it's emotional and we work full time so we've given up a lot of our personal lives to make this happen as well, but that's what you do when you believe in something.”

Despite the hard work throughout the year and having to spend the majority of the festival weekend running around working, Hargrave says the joy the festival brings to others is worth it.

“We're hugging people and high-fiving people, so that's what really makes it for us,” Hargrave said. “Seeing how much people love what we're doing is really the best part for us.”

While the festival has consistently grown in size since its first year in 2013, Hargrave and Zahrabi put out an email to past attendees this week, informing them the future of the event isn't looking great.

“In the spirit of honesty, Ponderosa has yet to financially break even, and in some years the losses have been substantial,” the pair said in the email. “We’ve been paying for the event out of our own pockets, without ever taking a salary or payment of any kind.”

And this year, ticket sales have dipped well below last year.

“At this point, with less than three weeks to go, it is looking very likely that 2018 will be the last Ponderosa Festival. We’re heading towards another year of heavy losses and we simply will not be able to hold on any longer.”

Many nearby music festivals have recently called it quits, including Pemberton Music Festival, Squamish Valley Music Festival, the Island's Tall Tree Music Festival, and most recently, Sasquatch Music Festival which had ran for 17 years.

“I'd like to think live music is still going strong here in B.C., there's lots of great bands,” Hargrave said. “The bands are there, we're just trying to give them a place to play.”

The pair have set up a GoFundMe page to help keep the party going. They raised more than $1,000 in the first day.

Headliners for this year's event include rapper k-os, Vancouver-based The Funk Hunters, Suuns from Montreal and We Are the City and Yukon Blonde, both originally from the Okanagan. The full lineup can be found here, and tickets here.