The countdown is on to the 71st Anniversary of Penticton’s iconic Peach Festival.
This year’s festival is set to attract tens of thousands of local residents and visitors to the downtown core and Okanagan Lake Park for five days of music, entertainment and family fun.
This year’s event takes place from Wednesday, Aug. 8 and wraps up Sunday, Aug. 12.
Don Kendall, president of the Penticton Peach Festival organizing committee, made a presentation to Penticton Council Tuesday detailing the highlights of this year’s festival.
Canadian classic rock legend Kim Mitchell and his band will be the headline guests on opening night on Wednesday, Aug. 8.
Legendary Canadian rockers April Wine will be the headliners the following night. April Wine has released 15 studio albums, three live releases, numerous compilations, a boxed set and performed thousands of concerts across Canada, the United States and throughout the world.
In 2010, April Wine was inducted in to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and as they continue their 45th year as a touring band. Opening for April Wine will be the Heroes of Rock, who who played at the Peach Festival for the first time last year and wowed the crowd with their tributes to the biggest rock and metal acts of our time.
The always popular AC/DC tribute band High Voltage will rock the crowd alongside Tom Petty tribute act, Petty Fever on Friday evening. Also featured is a tribute to The Eagles.
The weekend will be dedicated to country music.
Canadian country music superstar George Canyon and his band are the headliners on Saturday, Aug. 11.
On the final night of the festival, Canadian pop-country sensation Madeline Merlo and her band will perform as the headliners. Just last week, Merlo was nominated for a Canadian Country Music Award nomination for Female Artist of the Year Award, said Kendall.
Kendall played a brief video produced to promote this year’s Peach Festival. The video received almost 3,000 views since being posted on the Peach Festival website last week, he said.
On top of the 55 hours of free musical entertainment over the course of five days, there are more than a dozen other events on tap, he said.
The Skyhawks Parachute team from the Canadian Armed Forces will be putting on two performances on opening day on Aug. 9, the first at noon and the second at 5 p.m.
“They’re only doing two or three appearances they’re doing in British Columbia this year,” he said. “They normally don’t go back to the same city two years in a row, but they had such a great time here last year that they actually requested to come back.”
The Canadian Tire Mega Moto Cross event along Lakeshore Drive will take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and they will have five motorcycle daredevils, including most of the top riders in Canada, performing wild and crazy jumps and stunts this year, said Kendall.
The Peter Brothers Grand Parade set for Saturday morning has already reached its maximum of 100 entries, he said.
The parade marshal this year will be Canadian Olympian Justin Kripps, who is originally from Summerland and part of the two-man Canadian Olympic bobsled team that captured a gold medal at the South Korean Winter Olympics last winter.
“Justin is coming back to Summerland just once this summer and he planned it so he could be here for our opening ceremony on Wednesday night and the parade on Saturday,” he said. “So we’re really excited to have Justin leading the parade.”
There are 10 floats in the parade coming from Washington, Idaho and Oregon as well as one of Washington’s top marching bands, meaning a contingent of more than 300 Americans will be visiting Peach Festival this year, he said.
Kendall said it was estimated that more than 80,000 people participated in Peach Festival events last year.
“It is a guestimate, but we think it’s pretty accurate,” he said.
For all the details about the 2018 Penticton Peach Festival, click here.
