TRURO - Visitors to the Truro Mall today should expect to have their socks rocked as the second round of Blues Idol contestants take the stage.
"It went really well," Dutch Mason Blues Festival spokeswoman Margaret Bentley said of the first show last Saturday.
"I would've liked to have seen a few more spectators but after we rocked the mall as hard as we did on Saturday, there will be a large improvement next week."
And given the number of interested contestants, Bentley said, organizers are looking at scheduling in a third weekend to handle them all.
The top three contestants from each Blues Idol (Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m) showing will compete in a finale on Aug. 7. The overall Idol winner will earn the privilege of belting out two live performances on the Dutch Mason stage, six weekend passes, a makeover (clothes, hair, etc.) at the Truro Mall valued at $500; six East Coast Blues Society memberships and T-shirts and a Greco pizza party valued at $100. Second- and third-place finishers will also receive prizes.
Festival-goers should also keep the Ambassador's Dinner high on their agendas this year, Bentley said, given the surprises that organizers have in store combined with the intimate setting the dinner provides.
Tickets are $65 each, and in addition to featuring dishes from the "deep south," participants will have a chance to rub elbows with the performers – who will entertain with both story and song – and have pictures taken with them.
Performers at this year's dinner include festival ambassador James Cotton, Charlie A'Court, Layla, Joe Murphy, John Campbelljohn and others to be announced later.
"There's some pretty exciting names there," she said.
There is also a chance that artists will be seated at the tables of audience members.
Another first this year, Bentley said, is that some of the artists are arriving as much as a week early while some are staying in the province for up to two weeks after the festival, which runs Aug. 13 to 15.
"So that's kind of exciting. Some of them are very, very interested in coming to Nova Scotia and for some of them it's their only place or destination that they are playing at this summer," she said.
