(Facebook/Rockin' River Music Fest).

By Michael Reeve

ROCKIN' RIVER

“I saw the announcement the same time as you did;” Former Rockin’ River promoter Kenny Hess

Jan 28, 2023 | 12:03 PM

MERRITT B.C. — The Rockin’ River Music Fest has been cancelled for 2023. The announcement was made on Friday afternoon via a post to social media.

“Over time, we have been met with a series of economic obstacles that we tried our best to overcome, but in the end, we have made the decision not to move forward with the festival in 2023,” reads the post.

Speaking to CFJC Today, former promoter Kenny Hess said he found out about the cancellation with the rest of the public.

“I saw the announcement the same time as you did,” said Hess. “I’m not shocked, I’m disappointed, I’m sad. It was a big part of my and my family’s life for a lot of years. It was extremely disappointing to see this happen but sometimes that is the way it goes.”

Hess stated that the 2022 festival was the first one where he was no longer operating the event.

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“As of last year, I was no longer the operations manager, I didn’t do the last festival, I just booked the talent. Live Nation took over the day-to-day operations. After then running it for the year they felt with the financial losses between the flooding and COVID and everything else and the less than perfect amount of people who showed up. We were definitely short of people at the last festival and it just made for economic problems,” said Hess. “But I do want people to know I wasn’t part of the decision-making for the last year.”

Rockin’ River has already come back to life once, starting out at the Mountain Music Fest. Hess says he would be onboard with a third kick at the can.

“I would very much hope so,” said Hess.

Hess wanted to thank the community of Merritt for supporting him and the festival over the years.

“I want to thank everybody for everything over the years. I feel very sad that we could not continue to do this,” said Hess. “The community of Merritt was excellent to me, excellent to my family. We really enjoyed the first years that we ran it. I was really proud of the talent that I brought into the town.”