The Levee on the Lake is returning to Middle Sackville for its sixth year in 2025, but with some big changes to how the festival operates.
The music and cultural festival will shift a month later than its usual August offering, now slated to run from September 11 to 14, 2025. And the main festival tent will also be moving, from the shore of Silver Lake to the grounds of the Sackville Music Barn in Middle Sackville.
Here’s organizer Shelley Chase on CHMA’s Tantramar Report:
“Hopefully the community will see the positive in that the 15 acres at the Sackville Music Barn are gorgeous,” says Chase. “It’s easier for us to set up accessible spaces. It’s easier for parking, for people to get to the venues.”
Chase says she and fellow organizer Stacy Read plan to keep “bringing unique experiences to the marsh,” and will start to make lineup announcements in late May to early June.
Chase says the change in timing for the festival came about due to three key reasons: the heat experienced in mid-August at the mostly outdoor festival, the local presence of more Sackville residents (including students) in the fall, and the favouring of ‘shoulder season’ events by funding bodies.
“We did discuss with our program officers at both the provincial and federal level if this would be a benefit to us,” says Chase, “and they felt very strongly that moving into a less competitive time frame, even that little shift of one month, could help them support us better and for a longer period of time.”
As for the location change, Chase says it was inspired by the opportunity to simplify infrastructure needs. For the past five years, says Chase, “we were essentially operating two festival sites. We’d set up a full festival site up at the Barn and then a full festival site down at the lake. So we were increasing costs on infrastructure… We were spreading our volunteers a little bit thinner, our setup crews, security, everything went up by double.”
Using the 15 acre Sackville Music Barn site will also mean there’s no need for road closures to accommodate a lakeside stage.
But what about the name, Levee on the Lake? Chase says she still considers the festival a Silver Lake area event. “The actual paddling event, the Lakeside Levee, which happens on the Saturday at the lake, is one of seven different concerts that are speckled around the lake,” says Chase, from the Sackville Music Barn to the Church by the Lake to the Campbell’s Carriage Factory Museum. So we considered ourselves a equal opportunity Lake event.”
“It was a very hard decision to make,” says Chase. “We just felt that this would be a way to continue to grow the festival and put some more positive reaches out there to the community.”
Chase says the large tent will be set up on the property, and the festival will still include a number of free shows as well as ticketed events. The festival will also continue to offer a series of free workshops at locations around Middle Sackville.
While most lineup announcements for Levee on the Lake won’t be rolling out until late May or early June, Chase did share two confirmed artists for this year’s festival: the traditional traditional Celtic fiddle and pipe group Beòlach from Cape Breton, and also Backhouse Brass, a New Orleans-style brass band also from Cape Breton.
Chase says she and partner Stacy Read are happily working on pulling together the rest of the performance lineup.
“It’s exciting because it’s joyful,” says Chase. “In this day and age, you know, there’s lots of things to be concerned about… We need to cultivate joy, and that’s what culture does.”
