By Jim Brown
Local business operator Sunny Gallant says she has absolutely no complaints about the July 5-7 Cavendish Beach Music Festival.
“I live on the road with White Sands and Tranquility and my next door neighbor rents his cottage out, so I get quite a bit of feedback from people on that road and because I’ve lived there I’ve seen what it’s been like from the beginning,” she said of the 11-year-old festival.
Sunny was attending the July 15 monthly meeting of the Resort Municipality of Cavendish.
“This is the best year ever. I did not have one trespasser on my property or the two empty lots beside me and the garbage that normally was on the road, there was hardly any litter on the road,” she told councilors, after they had solicited feedback from the public attending the meeting.
“Somebody else (mentioned earlier by a councilor) made a comment about the base music on Friday night. I could hear the base pounding but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t fit earplugs in and go to sleep,” said Sunny.
“On Saturday night I could hear a female singer for pretty much her whole performance. I don’t know if it was Carrie (Underwood) or if it was one of the other ones. But then if the barometric pressure changes you don’t hear it again. That’s what, five kilometres? If somebody’s complaining that the base was too loud and it was closer than five km I can sure sympathize with them, because it was pretty loud on Friday night at my place.
“But it is every year. I can hear it some of the time every year but it’s not so bad you can’t sleep that far away..It’s not very late.”

Photos by Jim Brown
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the three-day Cavendish Beach Music Festival and so were the acts, including headliners Carrie Underwood, Hunter Hayes and Eric Church.
The 11-year-old festival opened under brilliant sunshine and sweltering temperatures, breaking records for central PEI, and closed exactly the same way, with the exception of a rainstorm before Ms Underwood’s show.
It was a totally blissed out three days, which drew fans, young and old, from across PEI, the country and the world. It’s a safe bet many will be making the pilgrimage back to Cavendish next summer.
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Photos by Jim Brown
Day 2 of the Cavendish Beach Festival, July 6, opened under blue skies and sweltering temperatures, but a stiffening breeze took away some of the scorching heat. Hitting the stage were Canadian country star Livy Jeanne, winners of Season 2 of the CTV hit series, the Launch (Cassiopea, Michelle Treacy, Olivia Lunny, T. Thomason, Maddie Storvold and Saveria), Shawn Austin, Chad Brownlee and Russell Dickerson. Closing out the evening was Nashville superstar and multi-platinum songstress Carrie Underwood.

Photos by Jim Brown
Scorching temperatures were no match for the fevered excitement of thousands of country fans descended on the Cavendish Beach Music Festival grounds on Day 1 of the festival, which opened with chart-topping Calgary country artist Ben Chase (born and raised on PEI) and concluded with a performance later that evening by multi-platinum American singer and songwriter Hunter Hayes.
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Photos by Jim Brown
Rainy, windy weather forced organizers to cancel the North Rustico Canada Day parade but that didn’t stop one family from participating anyway.
Jonathan and Christine Townsend and their grandkids, Jake and Maggie Moore, were adding final touches to their float in the Lions Club parking lot.
“You can’t cancel your birthday,” said Christine, with a laugh.
“You can’t cancel Canada’s birthday,” said Jonathan.
And then, with a toot of their truck’s horn and a “Happy Canada Day” cheer, they were off to the downtown, flags and balloons rippling in the wind.