Virgin Festival Calgary-bound
Sporting brand new western garb, a clean white hat and cowboy shoes with no dirt on their soles, the charismatic Branson, who amassed his fortune with Virgin Records, told a group of 75 media that despite the 360 various companies the Virgin Group operates, his passion for pop music is what keeps him involved in these live music events.
“I started out in pop music, but now music is struggling,” he said. “Shops are closing everywhere, you’ve got the iPod and the Internet taking sales away. But what’s really coming alive is live music. We’ve held a festival in England for the past 10 years that people just have to go to. And now that we know how to put on a festival, we wanted to bring it to Canada. And now that we’ve tested it on the rest of the Canadians, we thought we’d bring it to you.”
The Virgin Music Festival, a variant of the U.K.’s annual V Festival, began in 2006 in Toronto, and has since played in Baltimore and Vancouver, attracting more than 95,000 fans. It has displayed such talent as The Who, The Police, Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins and The Flaming Lips at those shows.
Acts for Calgary’s version of the Virgin Festival will be announced in January, along with ticket information for the two-day event. Additionally, Calgarians will be given a chance to vote for which acts they would like to see by e-mailing suggestions to festival@virginmobile.ca.
“If you look at whom we had play in Vancouver and Toronto, you can expect a similar caliber in Calgary,” Branson said.
