Beatles festival helping London Come Together
When Paul Rivard stood at a podium five months ago announcing the first London Beatles Festival, he had a very specific theme in mind, one the Fab Four themselves would no doubt enjoy.
“I think for the first year we coined it correctly when we called it Come Together,” said Rivard, the festival’s director. “Everybody keeps saying to me it will come together. That’s what the first year is all about, bringing everybody together, coming together. It’s honestly been overwhelming. Never in the world could I have imagined the support we’d get.”
The London Beatles Festival will run downtown Sept. 23-25.
Top Beatles tribute bands will be presented on the festival’s two main stages — Clarence Street outdoor stage and the Wolf Performance Hall — as well as local artists paying tribute in their individual styles at many satellite venues throughout the downtown core, including at a third big stage at the licensed Octopus Garden downtown.
Rivard said his plan all along was to keep this inaugural festival small in size and scope, but it became apparent the wider public had other ideas.
It seemed everyone had ideas about what the event should be and almost all of them wanted something bigger because the excitement for what organizers were suggesting had grown beyond Rivard’s own expectations.
“I don’t know if it’s a void in something different, if that’s why people are really connecting to it. Obviously we are hanging literally from the coattails of The Beatles, what their music has meant to this culture, how connected people are to the music,” he said.
By: Sean Meyers
Source: Our London
