Written by Mark McNulty

Every seasoned festival-goer in North America should try to attend Bass Coast at least once. But be warned - once you go, you’ll want to return every summer. That can be challenging for those who live far from Merritt, British Columbia, but the trip is worth every mile. Tucked into a hot, dusty valley in the BC interior, Merritt is Canada’s country music capital, or used to be, depending on who you ask. The likes of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Tanya Tucker have handprints on the town’s Walk of Stars, and Merritt Mountain Festival used to bring more than 100,000 people to the area. In this context, Bass Coast is a natural fit for the area.

“We value freedom of expression in this community,” says Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz who was working inside Merritt’s mobile visitor center at Bass Coast. Residents love “the Bass Coasters,” he says, and the festival requires only a small police and fire presence compared to other events. “My daughter will be here tomorrow, she embraces this lifestyle. So I have this in my family, but we also embrace it as a community because these are the most friendly people you’ll ever come across.”

In its sixteenth year, Bass Coast was headlined by Leikeli47 and Of The Trees. West coast locals and international underground talent provided the best in bass, house, and broken beat electronic music across five stages, which were set up alongside dozens of interactive art installations. The-run of-show was world-class, but it’s what takes place beyond the music and art that truly sets Bass Coast apart. 

Donna Dada, a Vancouver-based DJ and quietly influential woman in North American jungle, described the vibe at Bass Coast as “a culture of care.” Attendees care for themselves, one another, and the land, which is traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx people. (“Unceded” means the land was not part of a treaty.) Sometimes, people treat festivals as an opportunity to stop caring, to abandon responsibility and just go wild. Yet during these weekenders where people are touching the veil, weather is unpredictable, transportation is scarce, and resources are limited, it’s a good time to exercise more caution, while still letting loose. It’s a delicate balance that Bass Coast strikes elegantly. 

The event is founded and primarily produced by women. Andrea Graham (aka The Librarian) co-curates the music, Liz Thompson curates the art, and Ana Hilliar runs point on production. Many of the staff, artists, and attendees I spoke with suggested Bass Coast’s culture of care comes from its femme-forward management structure. Another woman who contributes to this culture is Stacey Forrester, Harm Reduction Manager at Bass Coast and a Sexual Violence Prevention Educator who has worked for the festival since it moved to Merritt 11 years ago. Stacey and her 80+ volunteers in peach pink shirts help keep the festival safe and fun. 

Harm Reduction, the largest team at Bass Coast, manages an emergency phone line and spends shifts in “lifeguard” chairs behind each dance floor. They run a sanctuary space where attendees can cool out, and administer a drug checking station with a television that broadcasts details about the substances circulating on the grounds. Coastal British Columbia was considered the epicenter of the continent’s toxic drug crisis, Stacey tells me. “The trends we saw in toxicity happened first here and slowly spread across the rest of Canada and North America,” she says. “It forced regulatory bodies to take harm reduction seriously.” After a teenager died of an overdose at a festival in Kelowna, BC in 2016, Interior Health, a regional health authority, required festivals to provide drug checking. The Harm Reduction team’s presence and the year-round messaging from their Safe Coast Instagram account encourages attendees to take some responsibility for one another. It’s not just someone else’s job. As a result, everyone becomes part of the festival’s infrastructure, weaving threads of mutual accountability that hold the festival together like a web. 

Stacey also points out part of harm reduction is keeping people occupied. “There are things to do here at Bass Coast besides getting really messy,” she says. Every art installation is interactive. The Coldwater River is delightful. Arts, crafts, yoga, and workshops are available all weekend. For example, filmmaker Dan Pierce delivered a captivating presentation on the relationship between flooding, clear-cut logging, and forestry practices in BC. (Merritt suffered a catastrophic flood in 2021.)

Among all these extracurriculars, though, music still holds court. JPS, a key electronic music curator in Australia, played a fan favorite late night set at The Cabin. He considers Bass Coast one of the best festivals in the world. “They’re not many festivals in the world where you can have Ivy Lab playing the main stage on a Saturday night. The difference here is the culture built around the music,” he says. “It’s in the name.” To hear the music, follow Subtle Radio for full set recordings coming soon. 

People throw the word “family” around often in the festival community. Everyone wants to feel part of something greater than themselves. Some people embrace the festival community because their own family may not accept or understand them. Yet this word “family” can be limited. Sometimes people only extend that familial love to their homies, to good-looking people, to heteronormative people, etc. Sometimes people hold back that familial love because other people out there will take advantage of it. At Bass Coast, everyone was extending that familial love to everyone else.

To be sure, I heard criticism from some corners. Three attendees suggested Bass Coast can be “cliquey,” even pretentious, because its audience is primarily from Vancouver. Shambhala, a larger regional festival which Bass Coast is often compared to, can feel more “open,” two attendees told me. Still, hailing from cliquey New York City and having attended both festivals, I felt Bass Coast to be plenty open. Bass Coast feels like a family, and by the end of the weekend I felt like part of the family. The festival is large enough to overwhelm you with awe, yet intimate enough that you can find your place. After all, in this community, finding one’s place is what we’re all seeking in the first place.  

Bass Coast 2025 pre-sale tickets are available now.

FOLLOW Bass Coast: Official / Instagram / Facebook / Soundcloud