Nanaimo Blues Festival brings international headliners and local talent to Maffeo Sutton Park

For 21 years, the Nanaimo Blues Festival has been honouring and celebrating blues music with international and local performers of all ages and backgrounds.

Previously called Summertime Blues, the festival started small in the early 2000s and has since transformed into a four-day affair. 

This weekend, people from Vancouver Island and beyond will gather at the Nanaimo Blues Festival grounds in Maffeo Sutton Park to listen to major artists such as Kansas City’s Samantha Fish, Anishinaabe/Ojibwe-Potawatomi artist Crystal Shawanda and Seattle’s Lady A. 

They’ll also have the chance to see and support young talent, including Nanaimo’s James Vickers Band — fronted by 16-year-old James Vickers — and Seattle’s Nikhil Bagga who is also 16.

In an interview with The Discourse, Nanaimo Blues Society president Jacquie Moisan said the diversity in performers at the festival is very intentional.

“It’s really important to us here at the Nanaimo Blues Society that we’re lifting up and presenting the blues the way it should be presented,” Moisan said. “It’s a genre that comes out of hardship and resilience and truth telling, and I think the performers that come to the stage really uphold and uplift the true spirit of the blues genre.”

The festival runs from Aug. 6 to 9, with a launch party held at The Queen’s on Thursday and three days of performances at Maffeo Sutton Park to follow. A bass workshop, led by world-renowned bassist Russell Jackson, will be held at The Queen’s on Friday.

Weekend and day passes are available and children and youth under the age of 19 can attend for free as part of the festival’s mission to promote the blues to new audiences.

‘Blues is for everyone’

This year’s festival lineup includes several women in blues who have taken national and international stages by storm.

Samantha Fish, for example, is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who has won dozens of awards for her work and recently opened for The Rolling Stones on the last stop of their 2024 Hackney Diamonds tour in Missouri.

“She is going to be our headliner on Saturday night, and she always puts on a good show. High energy, great performer, lots of talent and a great act to dance to,” Moisan said.

Crystal Shawanda is another Saturday night performer to look out for, according to Moisan. 

She’s an Anishinaabe/Ojibwe-Potawatomi country and blues artist who was born and raised in Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island and has made history as the first Indigenous woman to win the Canadian Country Music Award for Female Artist of the Year in 2009. Since then, she has won multiple JUNO awards for her blues albums and was the first Indigenous woman to debut in the Billboard Blues Chart Top 10 in 2022.

From Seattle, Lady A is coming back to the Nanaimo Blues Festival by popular demand to headline on Sunday. She’s a blues, soul, funk and Gospel artist and a four-time Washington Blues Society award winner. She also received the inaugural Patti Allen Performer of the Year Award last year.

“She brings some soul, some blues and a little bit of funk and really gets people up and dancing,” Moisan said.

For the Nanaimo Blues Society, ensuring that women and people of diverse backgrounds are fairly represented in the festival lineup is a priority.

“Women have been in the blues since the blues started. The blues is either about women or there’s women in it, so you can’t separate the women from the blues,” Moisan said, noting that often, diverse representation on main stage blues festivals is disproportionate.

She also said the history of blues and its roots in the African American and Black diaspora is something the festival aims to honour. She adds that early blues music from the 1920s and 1930s shares lived experiences of slavery and the fight for freedom, dignity and equal rights.

“There’s a saying that the blues is Black history and Black history is the blues. You can’t separate the two,” Moisan said. 

“It’s really important to us as a blues organization putting on a blues festival that [that history] is recognized. People come and enjoy the music and dance to the music because blues is for everyone. There’s also a deep meaning and there’s history in many of those songs, so it’s powerful on many levels.”

Showcasing young talent at the Nanaimo Blues Festival

The festival also aims to include performers of many different ages over the course of four days. It’s a way to showcase emerging and young talent from the Island and afar, Moisan said.

Nikhil Bagga is a 16-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist who will be playing the festival on Saturday. He is based in Seattle but was born in Toronto and has been playing guitar since he was nine years old. He has since released his debut album in 2022, played at the NHL Winter Classic in 2024 and won a YoungArts award in 2025, to name a few of his accomplishments.

“I first saw him at the Memphis International Blues Challenge last year and he was something,” Moisan said. “He’s a high-energy blues/rock guitarist and singer … he’s got quite a career ahead of him.”

Locals may also recognize the popular James Vickers Band playing the Thursday night launch party at The Queen’s. The band is fronted by James Vickers, a 16-year-old Indigenous vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of Gitxaala, Heiltsuk, Haida and British ancestry who is based in Nanaimo. Moisan said he has been involved with the Blues Society since he was 11 or 12 and this will be his third Nanaimo Blues Festival.

“We want these young emerging artists to have that experience on international stages and off stage. They get a lot of industry experience,” Moisan said. “We’re definitely introducing them to new audiences, and we’re introducing new audiences to performers they haven’t seen before, so it’s a win-win.”

A community affair

Aside from being an opportunity to celebrate blues artists and music in general, Moisan said the festival serves as a way to bring the community together and showcase the talent on Vancouver Island, in B.C. and in the Pacific Northwest.

“We have always remained close to our roots,” Moisan said.

Events like this serve as a place of connection and celebration between people of all walks of life, Moisan said. It’s also an economic driver, bringing in tourism and patrons to local hotels, restaurants and businesses.

But festivals in Canada have struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic and Moisan noted that iconic festivals such as Vancouver Island Music Festival in the Comox Valley and Rifflandia in Victoria recently announced that they will not continue. Meanwhile, putting on festivals is becoming more expensive and ticket sales have become increasingly unpredictable with the rising cost of living and people often waiting until the last minute to buy tickets.

“It’s very hard to run a festival when you’re not able to get those pre-sale tickets and put deposits down on your headliners and announce your headliners,” Moisan said. “It’s kind of a circular thing.”

The Nanaimo Blues Festival couldn’t happen without its sponsors, Moisan said, such as the City of Nanaimo and the B.C. Destination Events Program as well as smaller sponsors including Thrifty Foods, Vancouver Island Printing, Craigdarroch Castle and more.

Volunteers are also crucial to the success of the festival, with some coming year after year to support it. Moisan said many of the volunteers can be seen at the festival enjoying themselves and dancing to the music. 

“When we do our festival feedback survey every year I get comments on the wonderful volunteers and how much fun it was for festival patrons to come and see the volunteers enjoying themselves,” Moisan said.

The festival is still in need of last-minute volunteers, and those interested can reach out to info@nanaimoblues.ca to get involved.