Shania Twain to headline Churchill Park Music Festival in August

Grammy award-winning country-pop star Shania Twain will headline this summer's Churchill Park Music Festival in St. John's, according to a press release from the festival early Wednesday afternoon.

She'll be performing over two nights on Aug. 16 and Aug. 17 at Churchill Park.

Other artists performing at this year's festival include Alan Doyle, Lindsay Ell and Talk.

Pete Quinton of Mighty Quinton concerts, which organizes the festival and booked Twain, said they've been working on getting her to Newfoundland for at least five years.

"It just came to the point, that, you know, I think she wanted to do Newfoundland, it seemed. Her agent's a good friend of mine, and we managed to work at it and work at it and pull it together," Quinton said Wednesday afternoon.

Quinton said Twain will come to St. John's between two legs of a Las Vegas residency. The festival will likely be her only show in Canada this summer — and possibly this year.

In 2023, Canadian music icon Alanis Morissette took to the stage at the festival at the park in the centre of St. John's. 

Quinton said it's exciting to see acts like Twain interested in coming to the province and the festival, which has been able to pull big acts in recent years.

"You start selling out a few shows, you get [bigger] artists here, you're building your brand. Eventually the acts hereafter, they come around lots of times."

Presale tickets to see Twain begin April 2 at noon NT, and general admission tickets for the festival begin April 4 at noon.

Quinton said he hopes to make the festival a two-weekend event in August as in previous years but that depends on what artists come through.

He told CBC News he had heavily pushed for American rock bands the Killers and Green Day but they either fell through or were too expensive to book.

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