Laketown is shaking things up as they say goodbye to their Laketown Shakedown festival in favour of using their permanent amphitheatre to bring in other festivals and events throughout the summer season. 

The team at Laketown has been bringing big acts to Vancouver Island's Laketown Ranch to end the month of June with the Shakedown festival since 2016. After extensive conversations throughout the fall, an announcement was made on Facebook under their new page name Laketown Amphitheatre about the change.

They said they have decided to expand their horizons and look at all options for 2025 and beyond to maximize the benefits of having a permanent amphitheatre.

"There will always be a Sunfest, that is a staple, we are not doing anything with that," said festival director Michael Hann. "We are moving away from the Shakedown name because with the festival you have to pick one date, announce that date and then find artists to fit that date all while competing with Europe and the United States.

"Because we have this permanent facility, we are saying instead of just having the one festival but let's have more conversations and see what is available throughout the summer. Also moving away from the Shakedown model will open us up to other potential genres, and do have some things that we will be announcing."

Plans include a wide array of single and multi-day events between May and September.

Fans of the annual three-day festival can keep up to date through the Laketown Amphitheatre Facebook page on the events they plan to bring in later this year, and beyond.

"We are playing to our strengths by doing this a lot of festivals that you pop up in soccer fields and what-not and end up being very bound to do those dates," said Hann. "With having having a permanent amphitheatre we have the luxury of being able to work with artists' schedules, and this also allows us to open up to a wider range of artists that don't necessarily fit into our former Shakedown model.

"By making this move we are also trying to make things more economical for people. The festival model is different in the sense that if we just built an entire concert around Gwen Stefani [who headlined Laketown Shakedown in 2024] as opposed to filling up a full day of artists, with doing that we are not subsidizing the other acts as well if people are just coming to see a star at the level of Gwen Stefani.

"We are always trying to keep things at a price point that is attainable for people, and we think that this model will help with that. It all depends on artist availability so every summer moving forward is going to look a little bit different, but there are going to be some exciting things coming down the pipe later this year."