July 14th, 2017 will mark the 10th year that magic has descended upon the North Country Fairgrounds outside Driftpile, Alberta. Since its debut year, Astral Harvest has grown continuously by the sweat of its organizers and by word of mouth, as its citizens go forth raving about the rave with a soul in northern Alberta. Astral Harvest has enjoyed this success largely due to its strict adherence to the golden rule of festival curation: Community comes first!
As Astral Harvest reaches maturity, we can see the fruits and flowers of past years’ efforts in its ability to not only book top level talent, but also its workshops, healers, speakers, performers, and installations. Basically, Astral has made it possible for anyone to contribute to the festival. This approach is pure genius, as it not only increases engagement, it also creates places for the community to come together. There is way more going on at Astral Harvest than any one person could experience in 4 days. For these reasons, Astral Harvest has been labeled by many as Canada’s answer to Burning Man.
This growing festival continues to find new ways to connect its community, launching its own podcast this year that features community members and their work. To get a feeling for how much Astral Harvest cares about its artists, as well as how much its artists care about each other, check out the official lineup video (below). In it, we see artist Breakfast Jones live-drawing a dozen of the headliners in beautiful detail, all while capturing a certain special essence in each (we especially liked the drawing for Longwalkshortdock).
Even though Astral Harvest isn’t going on about it in their promotions, we know that 10 years is a good reason to celebrate, and we can’t wait to be there with them to take in this momentous occasion!
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