Summer Moon Festival may no longer be held in summer

Sault Ste. Marie's Summer Moon Festival is expected to undergo some changes in 2024.

The biggest of those changes, outlined this week at the Downtown Association's annual general meeting, will likely mean the popular cultural event will get a new name.

Organizers are planning to move the event to September instead of June, meaning it may no longer be a summer event.

"We think it would be advantageous for us to move the festival to September to coincide with Culture Days," said Josh Ingram, area coordinator for special events at the City of Sault Ste. Marie, which organizes the annual event in conjunction with the Downtown Association and Tourism Sault Ste. Marie.

"The big move is: every one of our partners around the table agree that we should be moving this festival from Quarter 2 to Quarter 3," Ingram told members of the Downtown Association gathered Wednesday night at the Grand Theatre.

A September festival, Ingram said, will be better timed for participation by students, who are heavily involved in painting the festival's downtown murals.

"It's better alignment with post-secondary," Ingram said.

"You host anything in June – a mountain bike race, an arts and culture forum – it's really hard to get students out when they're right in the middle of exams. And when they're not in exams, they don't have to be in school."

"June is packed. And when June is not packed, people are leaving because school is out and they want that first great week out in cottage country.

"So we think that this is a better allocation. There's a little bit more availability for people to come out to this event," Ingram said.

Since the Summer Moon Festival and its predecessor Community Art Project started, 19 murals have been painted in the downtown area, 11 of them in Queenstown.

In another change, organizers want to ensure that, going forward, 50 per cent of new murals in Queenstown have representation from local artists.