“Toronto is due for something the size and scope of SXSW”: Executive producer Kevin Barton on the ambitions of the new Departure Festival

Last June, Toronto’s Loft Entertainment and the US-based Oak View Group acquired Canadian Music Week, sparking curiosity and concern about the fate of the long-standing music festival. The event’s new owners have made significant tweaks to CMW’s DNA by adding comedy, art and technology to the lineup—this year’s edition has chef Matty Matheson, the creators of the comedy podcast How Did This Get Made? and more, rounding out a musical roster that includes Bryan Adams, Shaggy, Mustafa and Jessie Reyez. Here, Kevin Barton, executive producer at Loft Entertainment, talks about what’s at stake when reinventing a Toronto institution, where rap and comedy intersect, and why there’s never a bad time to bet on art.

Canadian Music Week had a four-decade run. Departure is very publicly—forgive me—departing from the historically music-only festival. What’s your pitch to get CMW purists to buy in to a version that includes food, tech, comedy and more? There’s a little easter egg in our name: in the middle of the word departure is the word art. Art is in everything we do, and it’s what we want to support here. But we understand that music is the ecosystem that binds everything together—when you’re having a culinary experience or attending a visual art show, music is always involved, even if it’s in the background. We know that musicians aren’t just one thing anymore; they are multifaceted. We wanted to expand the festival to reflect what the artist experience is like today. Related: A popular Toronto rock band is playing a show for UHN patients

Meaning artists have to become entrepreneurs and influencers to make a reasonable living? Yeah. I’ve watched the evolution of the artist over my career. I started at Universal Music Canada and became head of marketing there. Back then, an artist recorded an album. But remuneration isn’t what it used to be, so today they record an album, they are on socials, they watch the streaming numbers constantly. Most of them get into merch, they set up their own shows. They’ve been forced to grow and expand outside of music to compete in the market—they can’t just be musicians anymore. They have to be entrepreneurs.

Is that why tech is now a significant part of the festival’s programming? You’ve got Elevate CEO Lisa Zarzeczny and more. The biggest players in the room are the tech companies, and artists need to understand that. They need to grasp how these technologies are affecting entertainment and music. Artists are no longer insulated from those conversations, so we want to make sure they are engaging in them.

Toronto has a strong comedy scene, so that makes sense from a built-in audience perspective. But how much do comedy and music overlap, in your opinion? Comedy was a tricky one for us on the surface, but there’s synergy with music. Russell Peters, who hosted our launch event, gets that. He once told me that rap and comedy are very similar—one man with a microphone up there trying to command an audience.

Speaking of men who command audiences, Matty Matheson is one of your featured speakers. Matty really defines what we’re trying to do here. He is a chef, an actor and an entrepreneur. When we say we want to span multiple disciplines, that is what we mean.

This is, arguably, a terrible time to launch an ambitious new festival. People are worried about the economy, about where their dollars are going. How nervous are you? Toronto is a major destination for music tours, one of the top in the world. We can have a South Asian concert sell out one night and a rock and roll show sell out the next. All to say, we’re a diverse city that supports entertainment. So that part doesn’t scare me. It’s more about whether we created the right offering to convince people they should spend on it. That’s why we’ve really focused on our programming, but we’re also leaning in to what 40-plus years of data is telling us. We’re doing something slightly different than CMW that hopefully better addresses today’s needs. When things are tough, people should lean on artists, on their messages of hope. We’ve tried to create a fun, experimental platform where people can come together, share ideas, maybe solve some problems and figure out what the future can look like.

This is year one. What’s your brass ring? Look at South by Southwest in Austin or Art Basel in Miami. Toronto is due for something of that size and scope that isn’t just industry facing—something that brings in the entire community. We have TIFF, and it’s amazing what it has done for film. That’s what we are looking at for the future.

It’s time to pick your favourite child. Whose performance or panel is a can’t-miss? Our fireside chat with Shaggy. I worked with him at the beginning of my career. He has survived the whole life cycle of an artist and all the challenges involved with that. I’m honoured to have someone of his calibre spreading knowledge.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.