Cape Breton welcomes Celtic Colours Festival to Nova Scotia for 28th year

The Celtic Colours Festival is taking place at venues around Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia from Oct. 11 to 19. The annual event happens during the peak of the colourful changes to the island’s fall foliage. The hundreds who flock to the festival, come to see the changing of the leaves and listen to the music.

Dave Mahalik is the communications manager with the Celtic Colours Festival. With the exception of one year, he’s been with the festival since its inception 28 years ago.

"Fifty concerts, and there's more than 200 community cultural events all over the Island,” Mahalik said.

The festival provides an economic boost to the region. Since the first Celtic Colours Festival in 1997, the money generated might outnumber the fall leaves.

"I think we've brought in about $208 million in the time that the festival has been on, and that's just direct spending”, Mahalik said.

Blair Brown is one of three transportation coordinators with Celtic Clouts. He has been part of the festival since its second year.

"Right now, we have 38 drivers”, Brown said. "When you spend the day with an artist, you get to know them personally and you become friends. So right now, I've got friends all over the world that I talk back and forth to that I've met at the festival."

The huge chart on Brown’s wall is a testament to the planning and logistics involved in getting artists and their equipment to and from airports and hotels to performances in every part of Cape Breton.

Even though she’s been with the festival from the beginning, Mahalik said the combination of Celtic music and fall colours never gets old.

"The thing I always note is the first night that I get out to Festival Club - which is the late night event up here at the Gaelic College”, Mahalik said. “And I look up, and the stars are the same stars that they were last year. Like, I don't get out much in the night time anymore with a youngster and I don't get to look up in the sky often enough in the night time, but this is the time through this week that I always look up and I go 'Oh yeah, right. Here we are.'"

Celtic Colours 2024 wraps up with its grand finale concert - featuring Grammy Award-winning piper Carlos Nunez - Saturday night at Sydney's Centre 200.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.