Refrain: An indispensable tool to favour the growth and visiblity of our festivals!

The Regional Independent Arts Festivals Group, now known as Refrain, was born in March 2020. To help you learn more about the DNA of this new grouping, we met Patrick Kearney, Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of the Santa Teresa Festival.

“It sorts of came about accidentally because I was feeling a bit isolated around mid-March 2020,” recalls Patrick Kearney. “I wrote to a few festivals and asked them if they’d like to have a chat about what we’re all going through at the moment, with the lockdown, etc.” The response from other festival directors was immediate.

That’s how the festivals started to get together, albeit virtually. Although many of us enjoyed talking to our friends via video during the pandemic, it wasn’t all fun and games for festival directors! Instead, they shared what they were experiencing during this uncertain situation. The idea then began to take shape.

“As the weeks went by, festivals with common interests were inviting each other to collaborate. For example, the La Noce festival asked if it could invite the Regard festival and the Saguenay jazz festival. One thing led to another, and I started hosting virtual meetings with 55 festival representatives on screen,” recalls the general director of the Santa Teresa festival with a laugh.

Being a member of the group offers several advantages. First of all, Patrick Kearney and his team hold meetings every month. “Sometimes we invite a lawyer, a person specialized in copyright or an expert in eco-responsibility, in short, anything that might be of interest to festivals.” But representation is Refrain’s main attraction. “When we surveyed our members on what they want first, what they expect from Refrain, it is that we represent them, that we are 100% there for them. Moreover, Refrain’s online platform is a wonderful tool to discover festivals with a local artistic vocation,” says Patrick Kearney.

When we surveyed our members on what they want first, what they expect from Refrain, it is that we represent them, that we are 100% there for them.

The words “local artistic vocation” are important, because they indicate one of the group’s only restrictions: “Refrain does not include thematic festivals such as blueberry festivals or gastronomic festivals, for example, even if there is a musical component in a thematic festival,” he mentions with a smile.

Refrain is currently helping festivals cope with the changes imposed by health measures, but it also has other aspirations. “Obviously, we hope that the pandemic will die and that the group’s mission will no longer only deal with how to manage it. Above all, we hope that our virtual platform will help people discover Refrain’s member festivals. We want festivalgoers to be able to find all the information they want on our site and to go and visit our festivals after having gathered a ton of valuable information about the region, the artists present, etc.,” says the president of the board of directors.

Refrain is giving itself the means to achieve its ambitions. And what are these ambitions? “To give exposure, increase outreach and break the isolation of all these cultural festivals that did not really have a platform to exchange and share what they were experiencing,” says Kearney.

Refrain thus becomes an invaluable ally for all these festivals that have experienced difficult times in recent years. With the wonderful discovery tool that is the online platform, there is no reason why Refrain should not have a long life!