(Image: Moonlight Bazaar, Facebook)
The Moonlight Bazaar is returning to earth – uptown Saint John to be exact – this summer after the Covid-19 pandemic forced organizers to postpone the street festival last year.
This year’s event will be taking place Saturday, August 28 from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Organizers Lauchlan Ough and Jody Kliffer said they decided to go ahead with planning a festival for this year after the New Brunswick government announced a clear “path to “green”, meaning a guide to when all public health restrictions will be lifted.
“We have been circling the tarmac a little bit in terms of what’s going to happen. It’s always been so hard to predict,” says Ough. “So when they finally said, ‘here’s this pathway to green’, Jody and I picked the torch back up and kickstarted this whole thing.”
Ough says the goal is to have the event run the same as it did pre-pandemic. Though the province’s goal is to have all restrictions lifted by August 2, the August 28 date allows some buffer room if that target is missed by a few days.
“Our goal is to really come back and be one of the first real big events, hopefully in Canada. I think New Brunswick is doing a great job of giving us a plan … everyone’s super excited,” he says.
Like in 2019, this year’s event will take place on Canterbury Street and will feature vendors and live entertainment. But it will also expand to include nearby streets (which ones will be announced later) to accommodate a large number of attendees.
They also plan to have a new beer garden, since attendees drank the place dry the last several years.
“[The beer garden is] going to be properly staffed and stocked because Saint John loves to party and drank every beer on-site all three years in a row. We’re totally revamping that,” says Ough.
Past Moonlight Bazaars have had themes, with the 2019 event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. This year, Kliffer says the theme will be “returning to earth” and returning to the community.
“We like coming out of the pandemic, and going to the ‘green phase’ is a bit of collective euphoria and we’re coming back to the life we’re used to,” says Kliffer. “So metaphorically speaking, from the Moonlight Bazaar perspective, we’re coming back to earth and returning to our community. The theme this year is that return to earth, return to the community. The shuttle is coming home.”
After a tough year and a half for many local businesses, Ough agrees the event’s community aspect is important.
“So many businesses in that area have their best night of the year, and maybe even more important they get exposed to so many new people that are outside of Saint John, or maybe they haven’t come uptown in a while. People come out and they see a lot of amazing things,” he says.
“When our event wins, everybody wins. This is the year we really want to see that happen even more to get everyone back on track.”
Cherise Letson is the associate editor of Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
