The Roar 2007 Festival News

Where's the ROAR? What's happening?

April 25, 2008

Nothing. We’re taking a year off. We’re resting and re-charging our batteries. We’re looking wistfully towards San Francisco’s LitQuake and wishing Edmonton had three or four million people instead of just almost one million. Bottom-line, this ROAR Spoken Word Festival is a ton, that’s “metric ton,” of work. And without steady funding, an official board (which to this point, we’ve happily avoided) and a festival director and producer who are NOT living, breathing writers, it’s not doable every year. We’re scratching our heads – wondering about the feasibility of three or four unique literary type festivals in this city.

Quite frankly, we don’t see our non-fiction festival going anywhere. God bless the non-fiction folks for trying to stand apart from Calgary’s literary festival but it ain’t sexy folks. It needs poetry, fiction, drama, spoken-word, collaborations…and a clever hook to make it unique. It needs a great name — something that says: exciting, very cool, thought-provoking, entertaining!! The ROAR took all the poetry silos and invited them to a party. It’s a great idea. Somebody needs to do the same with all the literary factions, genres, groups and festivals in Edmonton.

I (Thomas here) dream of holding a literary festival with non-fiction, fiction, poetry, spoken-word, and a gaggle of collaborations with musicians, dancers, visual artists…held in a circus tent, with a full bar that serves only wine, imported beer, and single-malt whiskey. A three or four-day circus of words!! Call it “Tent” or “The Tent Fest” or “The Tent Literary Circus.” It’s a dream I don’t have the energy, or time, to chase…not right now. I think it’s an example of what could happen.

In our opinions, what should happen is this: The poetry festival, the Roar, and LitFest should all die. That’s right. You read that right. This town simply isn’t big enough to support all three events. What we really need is ONE literary festival for the whole community to rally around, and the citizenship at large to get interested in. It won’t happen this year but someone, or some small group, has to make strides toward this goal – starting right now. As a city and a community, we should strive towards creating something on par with WordFest in Calgary. In terms of the Canadian literary circuit, Edmonton should be mentioned in the same breath as Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary. Creating events that are exciting and engaging should be the top priority. Events that non-writers would attend. This won’t be easy. The work has to start now, and someone has to be in it for the long haul. The beast will need money. A lot of money. The current players (Lit Fest, Stroll, Roar) have to get together along with the Edmonton Arts Council and come up with a plan. No big 20-person organizational meetings. A small group of committed individuals have to make it happen. A society should be formed, and the hunt for a non-artist executive director should start now. Maybe in 2010 we can have something approaching WordFest in Calgary. It’s possible.

So, back to the drawing board. The ROAR’s not dead. It’s in hiatus while we dig around in the dirt. See what we can kick up.

Festival Director, Thomas Trofimuk

Festival Producer, Michael Gravel

— Thomas Trofimuk