Victoria’s Arts Community Gains International Attention

August 17, 2017

VICTORIA – Thanks to groundwork laid by Tourism Victoria, one of the most recognized popular culture publications in the world is featuring Victoria’s music scene.

Rolling Stone sent a production crew to Victoria last month to cover our city and its culture, as well as venues that will be used for the 10th annual Rifflandia Festival, which runs Sept. 14-17.

The coverage is the result of hard work by Tourism Victoria to leverage partnership investment through the provincial and federal government tourism marketing agencies, Destination B.C. and Destination Canada.

RollingStone.com has more than 13.3 million unique visitors and 105 million page views per month. The Rolling Stone crew, hosted by Tourism Victoria’s marketing and travel media team, covered the Phillips Backyard Weekender.

That festival is produced by the same Victoria firm that puts on Rifflandia, Atomique Productions. This allowed the crew from Rolling Stone to produce a story that could run before Rifflandia, perhaps inspiring viewers to make the trip to Victoria and see the show for themselves.

Rifflandia, Victoria’s largest music and arts festival, takes place Sept. 14-17. The festival runs day and night, with a full schedule of arts, music and community events.

One of the notable things about Rifflandia is that, within a few blocks, you can go from being in a stadium with thousands of fans watching established performers such as Modest Mouse, Courtney Love or The Flaming Lips to experiencing a DJ at an art gallery with a handful of other people.

“We were thrilled to work with Tourism Victoria and their partners to bring this campaign to life, capturing the eye and audience of Rolling Stone,” says Nick Blasko, Festival Director of Atomique Productions. “As we embark on our 10th year, it is unique initiatives like this that help us continue to build our brand and profile as a premier destination festival.”

Over the years, the festival has given music fans an early look at bands and artists just before they’ve exploded on the scene. Acts such as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Arkells and Half Moon Run have appeared here before achieving international fame.

”Greater Victoria’s tourism industry generates about $2 billion in economic activity every year and employs about 22,000 people.

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