A performer on stage at a past Fiddle and Stepdance Championship.
Pembroke’s 48th annual Fiddle and Stepdance Championship is officially just a few months away, according to one of its top organizers.
Ian Hamilton, the president of the Pembroke Fiddle and Stepdance Association’s board of directors, says the annual competition has run each year since 1975, minus the beginning of the 2020s due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because of that prestige, Hamilton says the board decided to rebrand the competition as a national title, meaning this is also the first-ever Canadian Fiddle and Stepdance Championship.
Historically, Hamilton says the competition already drew contestants from across Canada and in the United States, but he hopes this might entice even more to take part.
The contest has drawn somewhere between 110 and 120 participants each year on average recently, Hamilton explains, with the fiddle contest being held each year on the Friday and Saturday of Labour Day long weekend after a week of festivities in Riverside Park.
Recent years have seen between 350 and 400 trailers in the park, but that’s down from the historic peaks of 2013 to 2016 which saw more than a thousand trailers each year. Hamilton attributes the decline to the fiddle festival’s aging audience.
The contest is happening on September 4th and 5th this year and is free to enter, but attendees will need to pay to camp in the park for the week, with different rates depending on when they register and how long they intend to stay.
Early-bird pricing is available until August 9th. Hamilton hopes to see as many campers as possible this year.
Volunteers are also being recruited ahead of the event. Anyone interested in registering to camp or in volunteering can find more details on the event’s website.
(Written by Steve Berard)
