Music on the diamond

About 3,000 people packed Kings Stadium Saturday for the inaugural Denim on the Diamond music festival, featuring largely local talent, food and drinks.

The all-day event featured nine musical acts, and was headlined by Kelowna-local Chad Brownlee.

The festival is the brainchild of Mitch Carefoot and Kurt Jory. Carefoot, who plays fastball at Kings Stadium, said the idea sprang up in December.

“We chatted about after the fastball season's done this venue's not used for anything so we decided to put our heads together and said, 'well why not throw a festival?'” Carefoot said.

While the smoke in the Valley over the past few weeks had caused some concern for organizers leading up to Saturday, the weather ended up co-operating fully, with sunny skies through the day.

While there were many country acts on the bill, including West Kelowna's Ben Klick, Carefoot said he doesn't consider it to be only a country music festival.

“There's predominately heavy country ... and because we knew Chad as our headliner, it gives it a country theme, but moving forward the majority of the other acts, it's split fifty-fifty. We have some rock – Tiger Moon, Devon Coyote, Hot Knox.”

After Saturday's success, Carefoot said they'll be back for a second year in 2019.

“Of course you can't guarantee anything, but I expect the city to be on board with that as well.”

Music is scheduled to end at 10:35 p.m.