While they do boast one local favourite as a headliner (Begonia), the co-artistic directors of Real Love Summer Fest are focusing on bringing “out-of-the-box artists” to the small festival in Teulon, Man.

“We have Drug Dealer, who’s an artist from LA, and his band is made up of a bunch of pro skateboarders … so that’ll be really cool,” Adam Soloway, cofounder, co-artistic director and organizer for the festival, says.

Soloway’s also excited for Molly Birch, from Austin, Texas – “she makes ’60s throwback pop music, and it’s really well done and beautiful” – and Blessed, “who makes really angular post-punk music from Abbotsford.”

Now in their sixth year, Real Love has grown and learned and moved to a new site in Teulon. The new site is “extremely beautiful,” Soloway says and features a main stage nestled in the trees, lots of space for hammocks and two campsites where everyone is guaranteed access to shade.

The festival attendance is capped, so attendees can expect to not feel overwhelmed in large crowds. At most, with everyone involved, they’ve had around 750 people on the site.

“The first three years we were in Gimli, and I think that we used those (years) to learn what it actually means to run a festival and budgeting and how we wanted to curate it aesthetically,” Soloway says.

The focus for Real Love as they go forward is to build the festival up slowly, and to keep the focus on the bands.

“I think that has become our passion, is exposing people in Winnipeg to new artists that they’ve never seen before, and we’re able to do it in a grand capacity with the festival.”

Soloway encourages attendees to “keep an open mind about the music” and to listen to the artists beforehand to prepare for the festival.

Published in Volume 73, Number 25 of The Uniter (May 30, 2019)