Two local restaurateurs are looking to liven up the ByWard Market in what is typically a slow time of year with a unique festival that brings “Nashville-style” country music to the area.
Maple and Moonshine will take place at several venues in the ByWard Market from April 10-12, featuring local and national talent such as Dawson Gray, Dylan Burk and Riley Taylor, as well as line-dancing lessons and outdoor activities.
Alex Sirois and Jonah Trevor-Deutsch, partners at Ottawa Venues, a company that operates several restaurants in the Market such as Barrio, Lowertown Brewery, Bar Ocelli and Sky Lounge, are the driving force behind Maple and Moonshine.
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A country music fan himself, Trevor-Deutsch said the idea came as they looked for ways to elevate events in the Market.
“I’ve worked on a country festival previously and thought, ‘Why can’t we do this here (in the Market)?’ We’ve got all of these awesome venues here. We’ve got all this infrastructure … Why not do this in a period of time that tends to be a little bit slower for the Market? Give people a reason to come downtown,” he told OBJ on Tuesday. “I’m kind of creating the event that I would want to go to, if I was just a resident.”
Sirois said the event is being organized in the “Nashville style,” where music-lovers go from bar to bar within the Market to enjoy country music across the eight participating venues, which include the Heart & Crown, Lowertown Brewery, The Lafayette and Dominion Tavern.
After some initial planning meetings, Sirois said he and Trevor-Deutsch pitched the idea to other ByWard businesses, City of Ottawa nightlife commissioner Mathieu Grondin and representatives from the ByWard Market District Authority.
“We did a slide deck and … asked who wanted to be on board. We reached out to some sponsors: Crown Royal, Chevrolet, the nightlife office and Pistols Brewery. It’s turned into all these businesses supporting each other,” he said.
Admission to most of the activities, including six of the nine shows and a line-dancing class by Navan Boot Scootin’ at the George Street Plaza, is free. Tickets for three shows are $20 each or a “pistol pass” can be purchased for $49, giving access to all paid shows.
Trevor-Deutsch said he and Sirois were able to make the majority of the programming free thanks to funding from the City of Ottawa’s nightlife office. They tried to keep paid events reasonably priced.
“I’m friends with a lot of the artists and it’s great to be able to bring them down and give them exposure. A lot of them are not super well-known, but they’re incredible musicians … For $20, we think that’s pretty affordable to be able to showcase this amazing talent,” he said.
Country music has seen a rise in popularity in recent years, thanks in part to American artists such as Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs, Trevor-Deutsch said, adding Canadian artists are making a splash on the country scene as well.
“I’m really happy to see so much support from all of these different (entities) like the city, the bars, the sponsors. It’s been getting good traction online with people saying, ‘Ottawa really needs this.’ We’re getting country back in the Market,” Trevor-Deutsch said.
With younger generations changing the ways they interact with live music and nightlife, Trevor-Deutsch said businesses need to adapt.
“The younger generation is not picking up the same (nightlife) habits that maybe we used to have when we were in university. I think the Market needs to adapt to these changing demands … I would love to see more country things going on in the city. I know we used to have more. Ever since COVID, a lot of these events have dropped off. So this is kind of a way to bring it back and show everybody we have awesome Canadian talent and awesome businesses in the Market,” Trevor-Deutsch said.
When the festival kicks off in a few weeks, Sirois said he hopes it acts as the springboard for a successful summer events season in the Market.
“This tends to be a slower time during the year. It’s the start of exams and the weather is only just starting to pick up. Plus, it’s obviously been tough in the restaurant industry and in the Market as a whole. We hope (the festival) really helps kickstart the year, get everybody off on the right foot and (so they) realize that the ByWard Market is an awesome place to come and enjoy some great food, drinks, music,” Sirois said.
Over on Clarence Street, Kristen Bradley, events and entertainment manager at the Heart & Crown, said participating in Maple and Moonshine was “a no-brainer.”
“I’m happy the guys from Lowertown (Brewery) took the initiative to think of this and create the event. It was simple for us because we’re basically doing the same thing we do every weekend, which is live music, but now it’s with some known artists coming through. It’s an enhanced version of our regular weekends,” Bradley explained.
While Heart & Crown has hosted similar country music events in the past, Bradley said she expects the Maple and Moonshine shows to draw more people outside the regular crowd.
She added that the festival is “filling a large gap” in the Market as “there’s not much going on in the Market these days.”
“It’s great to see some initiative that entails the Market and tries to reinvigorate it and give people a reason to come back to the ByWard Market,” she said.
Even though the inaugural festival is still two weeks away, Bradley said she’s already signed up for next year. “It’s definitely something that we are aligned with.”
Sirois told OBJ that he and Trevor-Deutsch have big plans for future Maple and Moonshine events.
“We’re already planning it for next year. We’re taking lots of notes and we’ve had a ton of interest from retail (stores), from BIAs, from other venues approaching us … I think there’s a real demand in the city for it.
“The three- to five-year plan is to build it out to be a full festival. With next year being the bicentennial (of the ByWard Market), I think that’ll be huge for us and it’ll be great for the Market. (Next year,) we’ll do the festival in the Market the same as this year and grow the brand into a full festival from there,” Sirois said. “We’re looking forward to showcase Ottawa as the world-class city that it is for the arts and culture scene.”
