As the final throes of winter blow across this land and sea, we here at Atlantic Canada’s only festival of contemporary music and art for the cultural wanderer continue to work tirelessly on our coming installment. OBEY Convention VII will ride a heavy wave of freeing ideas and experiences through the beautiful city of Halifax, Nova Scotia between May 22nd and 25th. The festival will visit historic buildings, late night haunts, hidden halls, and public spaces with a collection of performances and works that challenge concepts of both what is normal and what is wyrd.

This year’s festival headliners come from across Canada, the USA, and Europe. They represent various genres and modes of musical thinking, but all of them share a penchant for performance, expression, and craft. Joining our list of already announced headliners will be world renowned ambient artist TIM HECKER (Canada), Terrible Records’ rebel-rap sensation LE1F (USA), minimal-synth darkwavers TROPIC OF CANCER (USA), pop-proggers EACH OTHER (Canada), wired-punk outfit TEENANGER (Canada), and neo-classical composer NICK STORRING (Canada). These artists join our previously announced acts—LOW (USA), JULIANNA BARWICK (USA), MAJA RATKJE (Norway), JEF BARBARA (Canada), WHITE POPPY (Canada)—and many more in a weekend that will see close to twenty non-competing, sequential events.

Part of this program will be presented by OBEY Convention’s inaugural installment of Art In Fest, a standalone festival of Canadian visual and installation works. This year’s presenting artists are DEIRDRE LOGUE, CHRIS MYHR, and ALEXIS GRISE. Openings begin on May 20th at various galleries and alternative spaces, with shows lasting throughout the weekend. For more information on Art In Fest, visit artinfest.org.

Early Bird OBEY Convention VII passes sold out in days, but a limited number of regular priced passes are now available. These passes guarantee admission to all ticketed and pass-only events. Individual concert tickets will be available when we announce our schedule on April 10th.