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RIFFLANDIA FESTIVAL

Where: Matullia Lands at Rock Bay (corner of Pembroke and Government streets), Victoria
When: Friday through Sunday, Sept. 13-15
Tickets:

Rifflandia enters a new era this weekend on the Matullia Lands in Rock Bay, the first one-site, one-weekend edition in the festival’s decade-and-a-half history.

That’s a big shift from previous years, when the popular multi-day festival was spread over multiple weekends and locations, including former anchor venue Royal Athletic Park. But while Rifflandia 2024 will look vastly different to some, the spirit of the festival remains unchanged, according to Nick Blasko, festival co-founder and CEO of Rifflandia Entertainment Co.

“All the things that people have come to love about Rifflandia, we have combined them into one,” he said.

The festival ran over two weekends in 2023, the first year to see programming split between Royal Athletic Park and the Matullia Lands site. A crowd of 8,000 people turned up at the Rock Bay location on opening night — a single-day record for the festival. That was the impetus for Blasko to sign a multi-year agreement with Matullia Holdings, which was formed in 2011 as a limited partnership between the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

TLC, Rezz, Feist, The Beaches, Oliver Tree, and Ja Rule are headlining this year, with multiple others (including Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Broken Social Scene, De La Soul, Maestro Fresh Wes, and L7) also scheduled to appear. The performers will grace one of three stages at the new site, which includes two main stages and a covered dome more than 100-feet in diameter. The custom-built structure is one of several new additions awaiting attendees when they walk on site.

“The amount we are doing on the site is astounding,” Blasko said. “It’s a challenge, but we love it. When you build a new site, it gives you so much freedom to experiment with things, and try new ideas.”

Plenty of changes are afoot, including hundreds of feet of blue and orange artificial turf (“It looks like we’ve stepped onto the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Blasko said with a laugh) and scores of new ticketing options. Those include side-stage viewing for select acts and 10 purpose-built pods, which provide a private seating and viewing area for up to eight people apiece.

There’s also an expanded kids area (dubbed Kidlandia) and the Rifflandia Supper Club, a food festival within a festival with exclusive food options.

The festival landscape has changed drastically since Rifflandia premiered in 2008, and the new add-ons and improvements are necessary to keep Rifflandia growing. “The site that we’re on this year is the single greatest — and potentially last — opportunity for large-scale outdoor events in the downtown core,” Blasko said. “We want to come out of this year and think, ‘Yes, this can work.’ And we’d love a lot of other people to share that opinion with us.”

With three stages running concurrently, Rifflandia will have a multitude of music options for ticketholders. Though he acknowledges many will miss the daytime programming at Royal Athletic Park, Blasko said the festival had outgrown it. What’s more, Rifflandia is now an exclusively all-ages event, with a site-wide liquor license, making it a good fit for families and fun seekers alike.

Leaving the park gave organizers the opportunity to marry daytime and nighttime elements, Blasko said. “We outgrew the space in a number of ways. We hit a ceiling for production, we hit a ceiling for the guest experience, and we hit a ceiling for curfews. There’s no one reason why we moved out. It just felt like it was the time to do it. We had an opportunity to put everything we love about Rifflandia under one roof at one site. It was a hard thing to do, but given all the different formations of this festival, this seemed like the ultimate culmination of all of it.”

The festival runs until from 5 p.m. until midnight on Friday, from 2:30 p.m. until midnight on Saturday, and from 2:30 p.m. until 11 p.m. on Sunday, which “is later than we’ve ever gone — or ever would be able to go — at Royal Athletic Park,” another upside to the new location, according to Blasko. The festival schedule now has sets of music overlapping, whereas in the past, acts at Royal Athletic Park would perform in sequential order.

“You can move around and catch two sets if you want, because they are all in close proximity to each other. You can go see an artist for three or four songs, take a five minute walk to another stage for a few songs, and come back. You can pack in a lot more.” The white-roofed dome — which cuts an imposing profile, to say the least — is the festival’s showstopper. “It will be the epicentre of dance music on our site, from the time we open our gates until we close,” Blasko said.

Rifflandia has an exceptional track record in the market, in terms of alumni; acts that have played the festival in the past include Iggy Pop, Run The Jewels, Lorde, Moby, Charli XCX, Post Malone, Macklemore, Paris Hilton, and Shaquille O’Neal. This year’s line-up has less major stars than previous editions, but no shortage of must-see entertainment: TLC is the best-selling American girl group of all time, while Ja Rule and Feist each have four Grammy Award nominations. Oliver Tree has more than 2 billion stream on Spotify.

However, the world of concert production is priced higher than ever at the moment, which puts many top-tier stars out of reach for markets such as Victoria.

“We’re desirable, and have a good reputation in the festival community,” Blasko said. “Our alumni at the festival is very impresive and deep, and we’re good at hosting artists, I will say. That all bodes well for us. But we’re a medium-sized festival. It’s always a challenge booking, whether it’s a festival or concert in Victoria. There’ a lot of competition, and a lot of things logistically working against us.”

He’s expecting the new site will make life easier for Rifflandia going forward.

“Our intention is to be on this piece of land for years to come. We don’t have have to get it perfect this year, but we’ll strive to get it perfect. It’s a challenge but it’s also exciting to use the geography and space in creative ways. We have a little more freedom to do things down here than we did in Royal Athletic park. It’s been interesting to think a little bit more long-term with the things we’re building out and putting in.”

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