Tickets for LiUNA! Bluesfest Windsor are selling fast.
LiUNA! Bluesfest Windsor will be bigger, brighter, and bolder than ever with an abundance of new things in store over the next four days. With bigger sound, better video, more effects and lighting, and a brand-new state-of-the-art 35 ft. video wall, the four-day-long event will run from Thursday, July 12 to Sunday, July 15 at the Riverfront Plaza. There will be more food vendors than before and "the longest bar in town." The Bluestowne party tent is 15,000 sq. ft. this year and has a secondary music stage for attendees to enjoy in between main stage acts. The event is for ages 19 and up.
Another new addition to this year is their Sunday night Back to the 90s event, with artists Vanilla Ice, Naughty By Nature, Young M.C., Rob Base, and Freedom Williams.
"Normally our Sunday would just dwindle down because everyone's just tired — it's a long four days," says Jeff Burrows, the artistic director at Bluesfest Windsor. "But now we've reinvigorated our Sunday...this year in advance we've sold over 7,000 [tickets] for Sunday alone."
Burrows says this Sunday will easily be the biggest night ever at Riverfront Plaza. He says they only had around 1,200 people in 2017 on Sunday.
"I can guarantee you each one of these hotels along Riverside Drive are slammed and sold out," said Burrows. "And every restaurant along here, thanks to what we get to do together as a volunteer team, are all benefitting from it, and we're proud of that."
As for ticket sales the other three nights, Burrows says they have already sold double the amount of in-advanced tickets for Thursday and Friday and triple for Saturday, in comparison to last year. There is a risk this year for those who plan to pay at the gate that the event may be sold out when they arrive.
"Windsor is a walk-up town, so normally 25-30% of our day crowd would be walk-up," said Burrows. "There's a thought process in Windsor of 'oh we'll go on the day of and it'll be fine', but it's not like that everywhere else. So it's been a bit of a process to get that awareness out there [to purchase tickets in advance]."
Burrows says they hope to have tickets on sale for next year's Bluesfest by mid to late November, just in time for Christmas gifts.
Bluesfest Windsor is a non-profit event, with all proceeds going to Transition to Betterness.
Artists for this weekend include Beth Hart, Eddie Money, Sugaray Rayford, Pat Travers Band, Jonny Lang, Colin James, and many more. For a complete list of performances and times, visit bluesfestwindsor.com.