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The Peterborough native speaks from experience. In 2011, McNevan and some friends from Toronto took a sixteen hour road trip to Bonnaroo. “We thought we were really big music fans and it blew our minds,” he recalls. “We’d never experienced music the way those people did.”

After returning home, McNevan was shocked to discover a dearth of similar festivals in Ontario. He decided to mount one on his own, cold calling Capps who took a shining to the Canadian’s moxie but wasn’t convinced he was ready to put on an event on this level.

Four years later, with McNevan and his team a proven success and Republic Live majority stake holder Stan Dunford turning Burl’s Creek into “Canada’s largest outdoor festival venue,” Capps finally felt the time was right to bring a rock festival to the Toronto area.

“We liked eachother. We enjoyed talking about possibilities,” he says, “but when the plans were made to purchase the Burl’s Creek property it all came together.”

Like Boots & Hearts, the new festival will be licensed across the entirety of the venue’s 700 acre grounds, which can hold approximately 80,000 attendees. “There definitely won’t be a Hanna-Barbera land,” McNevan jokes in reference to more family-friendly festivals. “Our key demo is 20- to 35-year-olds but the goal is to be comfortable enough to bring your family.”

Of course, the 32-year-old knows many urban twentysomethings may have an issue getting up to Burl’s Creek (as organizers of the 2009 edition of the Virgin Festival discovered), nevermind enduring three days of camping, but McNevan says his team is working on “removing all barriers:” providing transportation to and from Toronto as well as several accommodation options, from the ability to rent camping gear to higher-priced “glamping” facilities.

“Part of you just wants to hope and believe that these people see the adventure in the camping side of things,” he says. “On the other hand we know that, for a lot of people, they’ve never camped. They might love the music but they might not be campers so we’re working on all kinds of partnerships and ways to remove hurdles for people.”

McNevan also points out that tickets will be priced affordably. “The lowest of this nature in Canada” he promises.