No backyard, no problem: Backyard Fest keeps the local music scene alive with new Sunk City music festival

Backyard Fest has been held in the backyard of Sound Heritage since 2017. Photo: Joe Pugh

A beloved downtown Nanaimo music festival is reimagining Backyard Fest after almost being cancelled last year.

After running for almost ten years, in 2024, fans of Backyard Fest got some shocking news a little over a month before that year’s festival. The festival posted on social media that the backyard venue had been deemed unsafe by the City of Nanaimo and fire department officials. That meant the festival would not be able to run that year. 

But then, the festival, run in the backyard of downtown record store, Sound Heritage, posted to social media that the festival was once again on for the year. 

The organizers of Backyard Fest told CHLY at the time, they were given the OK to host the music festival in 2024, but were told that unless upgrades were made to the venue to align with fire and safety protocols, the festival could not run in the beloved backyard.

While organizers made plans to upgrade the venue following the festival in 2024, it was clear these upgrades would not be done by the May Long weekend in 2025. 

Knowing how important the festival is to the local, indie, and alternative music scene, organizers worked hard to find a new way for the music festival to continue in 2025.

So while the backyard was unusable this year, Jac Proctor and Brendan Holm worked to create a new “fill-in” music festival called Sunk City.

Proctor and Holm are this year’s co-organizers of the music festival.

Holm said while the backyard space is taking on new upgrades, they decided to host the music at various locations in the heart of downtown Nanaimo.

“So we decided to step outside and go out into like the many venues that are on Victoria Crescent, such as the Queen’s, the Terminal, the Vault Cafe,” Holm said. “We're going to build a big stage down here at Lois Lane that will have food and drinks and will still be all ages and all these things. We're kind of spreading out and making it more of a multi-venue Music Festival over three nights and two days.”

He said the name Sunk City came from brainstorming ideas and realizing that Lois Lane is one of the lowest locations in the downtown. It’s at or below sea level.

“Lois Lane is probably the lowest place in downtown, and Nanaimo is basically at sea level. Many sorts of empty and void spaces have been left in these areas down here,” he said. “So it's kind of fun just to play on that and be like, ‘well, this is the place that we are, and let's name that and bring that forward’”

Lois Lane is located off Terminal Avenue or down the China Steps from Victoria Crescent, where Hub City Cycles Co-Op, Dealer Choice, the Chamber recording studio, and the office and studio of CHLY 101.7fm are located.

Proctor said this year they will continue offering the same great music the festival always has. There will be many local performances as well as visiting bands and acts from all over Canada and the United States.

She said that it was important for them when creating Sunk City to keep the venues located around Victoria Crescent, where Sound Heritage is also located.

“I mean, number one, this is where we live and play and work all the time, and so it feels really good to be down here. Number two, it's amazing how many venues there are close together. So bringing everyone out together to those places is awesome,” Proctor said. “Then you can be at the Vault and be like, ‘you know what? I think I love this act, but maybe there's a better one down the street,’ and it's just a one-minute walk away, and you can go check it out.”

She mentioned that because they will have performances at inside locations such as the Queen’s, they can have some performances run late into the night.

“That's an awesome benefit of going inside, as we can play music without disturbing all the neighbours,” she said.

Along with the musical performances, there will also be a local artisan market along Victoria Crescent on the Saturday.

Both Holm and Proctor said that while it was extra work to create a whole new festival for Sunk City, instead of just cancelling this year’s Backfest Fest due to the needed upgrades, they did it because of how important this festival is for the community.

“I think ultimately we went back and forth, and we're like, this event is awesome,” Proctor said, “It's like, such a core component of Nanaimo's music scene, and it would be really sad not to do it again this year?”

The Sunk City Music Festival will be happening this May Long Weekend from May 16th to 18th. Tickets and the schedules can be found on backyardfest.ca.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.