When it comes to exploring the experimental, OBEY Convention may just be Atlantic Canada’s go-to genre-defying, identity-questioning, rule-breaking festival. Held each year in Halifax, Nova Scotia, OBEY Convention returns for its 12th instalment May 30 – June 2, 2019 with a lineup that will leave you asking, “What did I just experience?” Today they announce the initial batch of artists performing at the festival, which you may now enjoy in this somewhat limited auditory format.
Among that lineup are performers like French-Japanese artist Tomoko Sauvage who creates music, believe it or not, is water, and Australia’s Justice Yeldham whose preferred instrument is a sheet of broken glass. In short, whatever you expected of a music festival probably needs to be re-imagined.
“The line-up this year is bonkers – probably the most international line up we’ve had. Eartheater is a pretty huge name in the experimental world, doing a special set with her harpist. Justice Yeldham is a TOTAL legend coming from Sydney, Australia, maybe his last North American tour, and I think Tomoko Sauvage is going to be really special too,” says OBEY Convention’s creative director Andrew Patterson.
The acts announced today for the OBEY Convention 2019 lineup include DJ Haram, Eartheater, Tomoko Sauvage, Justice Yeldham, Mich Cota, Debby Friday, The Brodie West Quintet, and Korea Town Acid. They will be performing at some of the festival’s 20+ event that will be held at many of K’jipuktuk / Halifax’s less conventional venues and historic spaces including the Halifax Public Libraries, The Khyber Centre For The Arts, NSPIRG, The NSCAD Treaty Gallery and The Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative.
The festival will be announcing more on in the next couple weeks, including more artists and details of OBEY Convention’s extracurriculars: their new Composer in Residence program, their EverySeeker Symposium, and O’BABY, the festival’s drop-in, free-for-all, all-ages workshop.
A limited number of specially priced Early Bird passes are available now. Passholders are guaranteed access to the entire festival. Nothing at OBEY overlaps, so audiences are able to absorb the entire program. Regularly-priced passes will arrive with a second wave of artists to be announced March 5th. Individual tickets will be available online April 16th. All ticketed shows offer a Pay What You Can option at the door as capacity permits. Early Bird Passes for OBEY Convention can be purchased here.