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Having resurrected the more than 100-year-old Yale, the 75-year-old Vogue Theatre and the 50-plus-year-old Biltmore Cabaret, Matt Gibbons is launching his biggest reanimation effort to date: saving the music festival in our province.

Speaking on his fast-approaching , which boasts headliners Vince Staples, A Tribe Called Red, and Gov’t Mule, we sat down with the veteran promoter at the Honolulu Cafe to figure out how he plans to pull the music festival from the province’s Lazarus Pit.

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What is your goal with the Westward Festival?

The idea behind Westward is to make [it] ‘Vancouver's festival’. We are the party planners, and we want Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­to let us know how they want this annual festival to look and sound. Every dollar that we make will go right back into next year's Westward Festival as we continue to grow this thing.

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In does not get a lot bigger than Vince Staples as your headliner at this point in his career.

When Vince Staples finishes the Gorillaz tour, he will be on the next level. Staples could very well be the next Kendrick Lamar; I think he could get there.

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That’s lofty. I see Vince Staples getting to the same level as J. Cole, albeit using a very different path.

I think that J. Cole is a great hip hop artist and producer, but he is a little bit wary of getting weird, whereas Kendrick and Vince will get weird. Staples could create something that at first we see as strange – like, when Outkast first released their material. But like Outkast, we may see everyone quickly come around to the innovative Staples sound. Vince Staples is one of those rare artists that can lead us to a new era; he is one of those guys that knows what we want before we know we want it.

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Winter In PragueÌýand his latest album Big Fish Theory are both great examples of Staples trying something different, a departure from his previous work.

That is what I am saying; he has the forward-thinking Kendrick-like approach. Staples does not do the same album over again. The beautiful thing about art is that we can all sit there and share our view of what they are doing and we could all be wrong. We can both either like or dislike the music, but we need to make sure that we give ourselves those opportunities to experience it by coming out to shows.

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Your hospitality group, the MRG Group, seems to work in unison with other promotions as opposed to against them, which is maybe counterintuitive?

We are in the same business; people may see that as competition in the traditional sense. What we need to do in this city is create a bigger pie, [so] it is not so much about the size of the piece.

People tell me all the time about ‘no Funcouver,’ and I take a lot of offence to that. I believe that somebody has to take a chance. Take Westward Festival, for example; do we know that it is going to be a home run out of the gate? No. The only way we can become Vancouver’s festival is if people support it. We are not going to have a or a Coachella here in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­because that is not organic to the city. The key to the success of the Westward Festival is authenticity; we need to be authentic to who we are as a city and support ourselves.

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Using multiple venues has proven to be an obstacle for several festivals over the years, what motivates you to go about the Westward Festival in that manner?

For sure, and a lot of those locations we do not own. It may be a challenge for people at first, but I think that they will come around.

Part of the reason we are incorporating multiple locations is to work with venues that are already fighting the good fight. Whether it’s the Fox Cabaret or the Imperial, these sites are providing a place for live music to happen. I do not want to create a big festival that initiates a vacuum effect that takes people away from the city’s venues.

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How do you plan to convert a city with a reputation for not always showing up to concerts and events?

It is the chicken and the egg debate – you need to provide the content that people want to see, but the public needs to start going to live events so that we can program the content that they wish to experience. With the creation of Westward we are saying, ‘OK, we are going to take a shot at this.’ There is often one person or one organization responsible for helping to establish the known music markets. When you look at San Francisco, you have Bill Graham Presents. Active local representation is the common denominator in the success of these arts-heavy cities; for example, C3 (Presents) in Austin.

Successful cities championing their respective markets and supporting the arts is how a city can become a New York or a San Francisco. We will start the snowball, but at the end of the day if Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­wants this or any festival they are going to need to support it as well as others. By attending the Fringe Fest and other festivals, we can create a culture that starts the path to becoming an Austin, Texas.

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Vancouverites have received criticism for not going to events unless the performances have been spelled out for them. Why do you think our city has that reputation?

In some ways, it is a Canadian thing, but maybe more so in Vancouver. We did not validate Michael Bublé in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­or Canada until the rest of the world thought he was a big deal. I am not certain if we need to develop confidence in ourselves as a country, but it has been true in Canada since the beginning of the arts.

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Who or what will sway the public into coming out and supporting live music again?

You don't know what genre it is going to be; it might be metal, it could be hip hop or folk. All of a sudden a city just grows up and says ‘You know what? We are going to get a part of this.’ It might be classical music that the and then all of a sudden it changes to a hip hop crowd and then it shifts to the metal scene.

There are always going to be individual acts that resonate, but we want to help create the momentum for people to say, ‘You know what? I am going to vote with my ass. I am going to take my ass to a show or the art gallery.’ We need to support more art so that it becomes a part of our culture in Vancouver, the same way that hockey, going to the beach, skiing or biking has become culturally ingrained. At the end of the day live events add to the fabric of people's stories, it is a place where you can go and surrender to the experience.

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Can the youth save the live music experience?

When you look at kids in high school today with the iPod mentality, we see first hand that everybody is an everything kid. Do you remember when the worst word someone could call you when you were younger was a ‘poser?’ We used to have the metal kids or the hip hop crews, but there is much more personal diversity in today's youth, and it is fantastic to see. We promote every type of music, and we will see the same people at a country show as we will at a hip hop show, and that was not the norm when we were younger. When you look at the Westward lineup, you have Gov’t Mule, Vince Staples and genres of music that are all over the place. We can't be everything to everybody, but we would like to have a little bit of something for most so that we can grow the festival.

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While many venues are being crushed to make way for condos, you are investing in them. Why?

People were telling us that we were nuts by entering into the music industry when we chose to. Everyone said that I am going to blow myself up and be bankrupt in two weeks when I reinvigorated the Vogue Theatre. To be in our industry, you have to believe in the fairy dust a little bit. To continuously put all of your money back into the music industry you have to be a little nuts.

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How are you signing some of these well known artists?

It is about investing in artists before they make their break and helping to develop them. People in our industry will say ‘I am a talent buyer,’ but the truth is the person who can write the biggest cheque is truly the best talent buyer. The best talent buyer in the city is probably Jimmy Pattison because he has the pockets, but deep pockets does not make someone a promoter. The best promoter is the person that can arrange a deal that makes sense for the artist and creates an appropriate ticket price and venue for the given audience. A great promoter is someone who can put all of the pieces together and create an excitement that people can get behind.

We are going to do our best to weave the Westward Festival into the fabric of September in Vancouver. I think that the city is ready for a diverse lineup that supports everybody.

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• runs Sept. 14-17 at the Vogue Theatre, Biltmore Cabaret, Imperial and Fox Cabaret. Festival passes and one day tickets can be purchased at .

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