The Dresden Kinstock Music Festival is going ‘country’ this weekend.
The all-ages event being held at Kinsmen Park will feature Sarah Smith, Jessica Mitchell, Mandy Jo Project & The Groove Noodles on Friday and the River Town Saints, Eric Ethridge, Buck Twenty, Dirt Country and Jacklyn Wills & Round House on Saturday.
“All of the money raised, or any events the Kinsmen do, 100% of it goes back into the community,” Darren Wills, a local Kinsmen member and one of the event organizers, told the Sydenham Current.
“We give back to the community in one way or another.”
Wills said approximately 1,200 people attended last year’s event, which was headlined by Canadian rockers, Sloan.
“We are hoping for a bit more,” he said.
“2,000 would be successful for us.”
There will be a beer garden and food vendors on site, camping options and games to go along with the live music.
“We do have limited all weekend camping available. It is free. If people go to our Facebook Twitter page or Instagram page they will find links to get the form to fill out and get back to us. Just so we know ahead of time who is coming, so we can arrange because space is limited on our property. They are filling up fast. We do have quite a few people coming to camp.”
“We do have games going on. We are going to have corn hole. It’s country themed so you gotta have have corn hole games. We have vendors on site. So we have three or four food vendors coming and a couple other merchandise vendors will be there as well.”
Wills said the support from the business community has been phenomenal.
“A shout out to all our local business owners that sponsor us,” he said.
“For me to list it off, the list is huge but a big thank you to all of them. We keep getting more and more that want to be on board. It is one that has turned out to be a great community event and I think a lot of the small businesses realize that and everyone it seems to be more and more that get on board to help us to and want to know what they can do to sponsor us or get involved.”
Wills added: “We haven’t had to go out and sell it to get sponsors. We aren’t out asking them for a lot. We give them a banner. That’s our biggest thing is we sell the banner advertisement that are up in the Kinsmen Park ball diamond. The banners stay up all year. The very first year I think I sold 12, and now I think we are up to 50 right now.”
Tickets are $35 for both nights and they are available on line at ticketscene.ca, Dresden Meat Packers, McKellar’s Flowers in Dresden, Dresden Meat & Deli in Wallaceburg, Tony’s One Stop or Strings N Things in Chatham and at Blenheim Chev.
