After a sold-out event last year, the Pocologan Camp Party is upgrading to new festival grounds and leaving its traditional seat of power, the Keleher family cottage.
After more than a decade at their location outside of Lepreau, New Brunswick — with five years as a serious line-up and poster private party, and the two most recent years as a genuine open-to-the public festival — organizers have accepted that their longtime haunt is insufficient to their needs, particularly if they plan to expand.
Having recently secured a new partnership with the John Law Corporation, Pocologan Camp Party have announced they will be moving to one of New Brunswick’s most iconic festival sites, at Retreat Lake in Chance Harbour, NB. Once home to Sunseeker’s Ball, the new location will allow Pocologan Camp Party to grow their audience and line-ups. Organizers hope the location will spark nostalgia for many of the region’s festival-goers as well.
“We realize that this new site is nothing short of iconic in our festival scene. Most of Team Poco got our very first inspirations from the Sunseeker’s Ball and hope folks will put their faith in us to revive this site to its legendary status over the coming years,” says Festival Director Jeff Keleher.
“The new location gives us room to grow. We were really cramped and honestly over comfortable capacity at the camp. It was either move or stay at the Camp with reduced capacity, which wasn’t a very fun prospect from an organizing standpoint. Folks will finally have all the space they need to set up their little festival homes for the weekend.”
Pocologan Camp Party’s organizers acknowledge that much of their current success was founded on the cooperation, support, and tolerance of their neighbouring Pocologan community.
“The ever-increasing support through the years from our neighbours was the only reason we were able to showcase all of those amazing performances. It wouldn’t have been possible without them,” says Keleher.
Now, with the challenges of over-crowding and a limited capacity behind them, they’re preparing to encounter new challenges and new benchmarks that await them at their new Chance Harbour location.
The Pocologan Camp Party will take place on August 21 and 22, 2020. Organizers say that line-up announcements are still more than a month away at the earliest; however, their Super Early Bird weekend passes go on sale today for $55 at pocologan.ca