Thousands expected to gather in Halifax this weekend as summer events take centre stage

Halifax will be busy with many big events this weekend.

Susan and Roger MacDougall attended last year’s Halifax Music Fest. This year they wanted the best seats in the house, so they drove from Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley and lined up early to get them.

“We’ve got nothing else to do. Let’s go stand in line and get the seats we want and get ready to enjoy a fabulous day,” said Susan.

She’s most excited to see headliners The Chicks.

The weekend lineup also includes Shaboozy, Blue Rodeo and Weezer.

“We’ll do about 35,000 over the course of the two days. We get pretty close to 20,000 tonight and close to around 15,000 tomorrow night I suspect,” said festival president Louis Thomas.

Halifax Music Festival decided to do theme nights for its second annual concert and despite the rain earlier in the week, the Garrison grounds are holding up.

“The field is nice and dry. We’ll have about 20,000 people. And it’ll be awesome,” said Thomas. “We’re just sort of fine tuning everything.”

The concerts on Friday and Saturday start at 5:30 p.m. and run until 11 p.m.

“You have eight, 10 Saturdays in the summer, so you’re very limited,” Thomas said about recruiting the acts. “You’re competing with lots of other global markets, essentially for these types of headliners. But I think we landed pretty good for both nights.

“We want to create an urban festival, not a festival that we necessarily have to drive to. We’re trying to attract all these younger people, so I think it’s important to develop things for them to do in the city.”

He said they want to take it year by year and grow slowly so it’s attainable each summer.

This year they upped the ante on the VIP section with available booths.

Tickets are still available for Saturday night.

There could potentially be another 7,500 across the street at the Wanderers Grounds.

“Our fans are always fantastic. I think it’s going to be a very good match if the concert has already started because they’re very loud,” said head coach Vanni Sartini.

The Canadian Premier League team is asking fans coming to their Friday night game against Pacific FC to dress in red or white to celebrate the national team playing in the world cup.

“It’s beautiful. We don’t have to forget that we are living a very special moment for the game in this country with the world cup and everything, so of course it’s going to be special,” said Sartini.

The events don’t stop there. The International Canoe Federation’s master’s world championships are on Lake Banook in Dartmouth, with the world junior and U23’s coming next week. The events are expected to draw thousands of athletes, staff and fans to the lake shore.

“It’s just going to be tremendously busy all around so, at a time when restaurants are having a lack of confidence that they’re going to make it, you couldn’t have a better weekend here,” said Sue Uteck, the executive director of the Spring Garden Area Business Association.

“I think it’s great. I think it’s a great opportunity for people to come and understand everything Halifax has to offer and what we have to offer as a province,” said MacDougall.

Also, the World Cup is still going on. Soccer giants like Portugal and England play Saturday and Canada faces an elimination game on Sunday against South Africa.

To help move people around the city safely, the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is partnering with Halifax Transit to offer free rides across the municipality Friday night from 6 p.m. to the end of service on buses, ferries, and Access-a-Bus.

With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Brianne Foley

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