OSHEAGA: a Year in Review

OSHEAGA, OSHEAGA website

During the summer of 2024, WXOU was given the opportunity to attend Canada’s biggest music festival; OSHEAGA. After months of packing and planning, WXOU Program Director Maya Kirksey and boyfriend, Robert Dagenais, departed for Canada on August 1st.

OSHEAGA: A Brief History

The Osheaga music and arts festival was created in 2006 by Nick Farkas on the Isle du St. Helene. The name Osheaga is derived from a Canadian region where Montreal is located. Since the festival’s founding, artists like Coldplay, Chappell Roan, the Killers, Weezer, and Eminem have performed to large Canadian Audiences. 

OSHEAGA, Pat Beaudry

WXOU’s Experience at OSHEAGA

Having been to Montreal before and knowing/ speaking French, Maya and Robert had an easy time navigating through Montreal. On the day they were attending, (Saturday, August  3), there were many signs along the street and in the Metro labeling where festival goers were supposed to go. This was massively helpful, as OSHEAGA was being held on Saint Helen’s Island in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River.

While OSHEAGA gave WXOU 1 3-day Press Pass, we were only able to attend one day due to travel fees and overall conflicts (August 4th being my birthday and I wanted to travel north). We settled on attending on Saturday, August 3rd as there were headliners like Chappel Roan, Green Day, the Smashing Pumpkins, T-Pain, the Linda Lindas, Renee Rap, and more. True to the music festival nature, there were multiple stages playing at the same time, so we had to choose between many of the artists, settling on Chappel Roan, Rancid, Renee Rapp, and Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins.

The music festival was being held between the dates of August 2nd and August 4th. For those who do not know, the temperature in Montreal was reaching 90 degrees fahrenheit while also having no cloud coverage. While OSHEAGA cannot control the weather, they for sure could have provided water or shade to its 150,000 attendants. Because of the lack of shade and water, many, including myself, managed to contract heatstroke and were forced to leave (due to safety concerns) or be hydrated in the medical tent. 

How our day went is that we got to the island around 11, making sure we had good spots for Chappell Roan (as she was our first concert of the day). We made sure to dress in very thin clothes and pack a fan to cool ourselves down. Once in our spots, we made sure to drink water and cool ourselves down. After Chappel Roan was done, we moved slightly back towards the grass and watched Rancid while eating $20 CAD worth of poutine. While eating, we noticed that thousands of people were just sitting around, slowly becoming more and more hot and dehydrated, as the only shade provided was that of the food trucks. Water ran for quite expensive, and the lines to buy from stands and food trucks were quite long. To get our poutine we had to wait 45 minutes. 

“I’ve been going to OSHEAGA since 2010 and SO much has changed for the worst, not much for the better. Water- during a heat wave, water was so scarce (waiting over an hour in a line at a station) that people were drinking the water from the misting stations and had washing stations.” states reddit user ChrCur.

After Rancid, we decided to leave as we physically could not be in the heat for any longer. I had come down with heat stroke and needed to get back to our AirBnB. Many did not have the same luck as I did in regards to leaving before it got bad, as quite a few had to be treated in the medical tent. 

Chappell Roan, Karen K Tran

Chappell Roan & Rancid

Having to leave by like 3pm, we were only able to see two performances! At the time of booking the headliners, Chappell Roan was not as huge as she is today. That being said, the stage she was at was not equipped for the sheer amount of people looking to attend her performance. Mind you, this was the day after her record setting performance at Lollapalooza that housed an audience well over 110,000 people.

Chappell's set was energetic and fun. Right of the bat, no one could tell that yesterday she performed in Chicago; she did not seem worn at all. Per tradition, Chappell had a costume made specially for OSHEAGA, she wore a fairy costume. Later, it came out that there was a wardrobe malfunction on stage. But the audience was unaware.

Rancid performed almost immediately after Chappell on the same stage. While only knowing one of their songs, I still very much enjoyed their set and thought they did a good job. What amused me is the fact that their target audience were middle aged men, which is a drastically different crowd than Chappell. There was a mosh pit.

A Year in Review

I have decided to write this article a little over a year after the festival, which is on purpose. When I have a particularly bad experience, I always prefer to wait and think about it to make sure I have my perspective correct and make sure I take the emotion out of my writing. 

I think that OSHEAGA definitely learned from their mistakes from last year, as I heard there were more water options and it was just in general less hot. I haven’t heard nearly as many complaints from attendees as I did last year. I’m confident that the critiques from the festival can and will be easily solved as they are little issues. 

Even though my experience last year was not the greatest, I still hope to go back.

Additional Photos Taken In Canada

While in town, we. (Maya and Robert), were able to do some exploring and sightseeing. Here is some documentation of that.