Up Here Urban Art and Music Festival co-founder Christian Pelletier said he’s proud of what he and his team have built together over the years, but, quite frankly, he’s tired.
The father of a toddler and a newborn baby, Pelletier said recently on social media that while he’ll remain on the Up Here board in an advisory role, he’s stepping back from his current level of involvement.
He needs to focus his energy on his growing family and will transition from “festival-dad to just dad-dad.”
“I've been doing this thing for 13 years, and it’s been 100-per-cent volunteer,” said Pelletier, in a recent interview with Sudbury.com.
“This is a labour of love, it takes a lot of work, and I’ve had a whole bunch of challenges on the family front.”
In his day job, Pelletier is a partner with design firm Studio 123. He jokes that he’s always had his 9-5 and 5-9, which focused on Up Here. “Well, that 5-9 is being eaten up by a whole bunch of other priorities right now,” he said.
The festival’s origins actually came in 2012, with the launch of the We Live Up Here photography book, and then the creation of a couple of murals, including the You Are Beautiful mural on Durham Street.
It was at the launch of the second book in 2014 that Pelletier and co-creator Andrew Knapp announced the creation of the music and public art festival.
First held in 2015, the festival was initially called Up Fest, but that had to change for its second edition because it shared a name with a large festival in Europe.
The festival survived COVID, when it consisted of public art and some online programming, and this past summer it held its 11th edition. The festival’s 12th edition is set for Aug. 14-16, 2026, in case you want to mark that on your calendar.
Pelletier said he has many favourite moments from festivals over the years, but one that sticks out was bringing Indigenous tenor Jeremy Dutcher to The Grand back in 2018, before he won a Polaris prize.
He said he loves introducing new musicians to Sudbury, and seeing the reaction of crowds.
“You could hear a pin drop in that giant room,” Pelletier said. “I was sleep deprived and hungry, and someone brought me a plate of food, and I just remember eating it on the corner of a bar while watching Jeremy perform. I think we were all super emotional from his performance.”
In terms of the public art created by Up Here, Pelletier said there’s been positive and negative reactions, most notably in the case of the rainbow-painted former St. Joseph’s hospital on Paris Street, which became the site of Canada's largest mural in 2019, and was finally demolished this summer.
“That’s the power of public art, it engages,” Pelletier said. “When we painted the hospital, it was extremely controversial until the very end, way longer than any of us expected. But the idea of that was in order to get us engaged in our city and in a different way.”
Pelletier is passing the torch to capable hands — Jen McKerral, another one of the festival’s founders, and program officer at the Canada Council for the Arts, and Jaymie Lathem, who was hired in 2023 as Up Here’s general manager and “top banana,”
“I think stepping away is also a vote of confidence and of love for something that you've created,” said Pelletier.
“Right now I know that this thing is in great shape and that the timing is right. Family circumstances might expedite this, but everything is ready to go and it's time to go.”
McKerral said she’s loved collaborating with Pelletier, as they complement each other in their artistic visions.
She said they’re opposites in some ways, as she’s risk averse and Pelletier “thinks really big,” and as she takes the reins, “I'm trying to inspire myself of that outlook, so that I can get a bit out of my my comfort zone as a programmer as well …
“I certainly have an expiry date as well,” adds McKerral. “So I think it's exciting to see who comes next. That'll be part of my job moving forward, is to be bringing in more people to then take it over after I'm gone too. So it's always part of the evolution.”
Lathem joined Up Here in 2023, coming from North Bay, where she served as executive director of Creative Industries. The 2026 festival will be her fourth with Up Here.
Pelletier said hiring Lathem was a turning point. He said in a social media post that Lathem is “an exceptional leader who’s helped turn our scrappy non-profit roots into something more sustainable while keeping that DIY spark.”
Lathem said she loves that Up Here combats the idea that the North is a blue-collar retirement community where people are only interested in listening to country or folk music.
“I was in talks with Christian in the We Live Up Here team for years before (joining them),” she said. “They were already on my radar. And when they got (hip-hop duo) Snotty Nose Rez Kids, I'm like, ‘Why can't we have Snotty Nose Rez Kids?’ ”
Pelletier said he feels Up Here is in good hands, “and honestly, it’s been in good hands for a long time already. I've been stepping more and more back year after year, right? So, this isn't like ripping the Band-Aid off.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.