The Portage Potato Festival is taking a fresh approach to entertainment at the 9th annual festival by giving the nod to local talent.

Co-chair Dianne Todoruk Portage Potato Festival said the board is excited to offer local talent all afternoon on Aug. 11 followed by a free admission social in the evening.

“What we’re doing for sure this year is we’re actually featuring local talent. I know it’s going to be very popular in the afternoon – in the multipurpose room we have a Johnny Cash tribute band that’s called Cold Hard Cash. We also have all the community favourites like Mark Morisseau, the Sharp’s, and all those ones,” said Todoruk.

Bands will play from 12:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room – including Morriseau, Cold Hard Cash, the Sharp’s and Northern Reflections - before bands kick off the evening’s entertainment on the main stage at 7:00 p.m.

The free admission social will include performances by Buddy Holly tribute band Rave On, local favorites Antic, Cry Baby, and the Blast Caps. Between bands visitors will be entertained by the musical stylings of DJ Heavy C.

“The biggest thing that we have changed, it’s a free admission social. There will be cash bar and of course live entertainment all night,” said Todoruk.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of that is the variety of music, which should be attractive to all ages, rather than having one main headliner that will only cater to one group.

“This year what we wanted to do is we wanted to try and hit all different demographics and try and create the interest for every age group,” said Todoruk.

Local bands may also notice the battle of the bands is missing.

Todoruk said the festival board decided to put the event on hold this year, but it may return in the future.

“We’re going to maybe give it a rest for this year. Last year we found we were kind of scrambling for entries – we’ve done it for so many years we thought maybe we’d give it a break and try it again next year,” said Todoruk.

robin.dudgeon@sunmedia.ca