After establishing SnowSeekers.ca in early 2009, and thereby providing his audience a site filled with of-the-moment editorial and video coverage of Western Canada’s winter sports scene, Jim Barr frequently faced the same question:

“So, what are you guys doing in the summer?”

Oddly enough, the answer – FestivalSeekers.com, his recently launched online resource for festival enthusiasts – came to him on a ski hill.

It happened in August 2011. Barr, president of Seekers Media Inc. and tenant of novaNAIT’s Duncan McNeill Centre for Innovation, took communications manager Rick MacDonnell and photography director Brandon Boucher (Digital Media and IT '09) to the Edmonton Folk Festival. Chances were good he could sell their coverage of the event to one of the company’s tourism clients. Once there, the team spread out.

Then Barr noticed the sign just off stage right: The Edmonton Ski Club, where the annual concert is held.

“It smacked me upside the head,” he says. Barr ran to find his staff. “I said, ‘We’re at a ski hill right now! We’re at a festival!’” With that, FestivalSeekers was born.

“I was so stoked,” Barr adds. “I was shaking like a little kid because we’d figured it out: the next piece.” He’d discovered the first step to diversifying the company into a truly year-round operation.

FestivalSeekers has since grown into a clearing house of information about events across Alberta, with plans to grow beyond the province.

It offers photos and videos, stories, maps and schedules, coupons and more, and sorts festivals by region and theme: music, food, sports, and arts and culture. Users can share their discoveries with friends through social media, sign up for a newsletter and, soon, download mobile festival information through an app currently in development. They can even catch festival footage in 10 short features airing this season on Shaw Media.

And new festivals are being added regularly, says Barr. “We’re going to put you on some interesting road trips this summer.”

The new site reinforces Barr’s plans for Seekers Media, which he intends to continue to expand by adding similar brands. “The goal for FestivalSeekers is the same as we have for any of our media offerings: to educate and inspire.”

This fall, read more about Barr’s plans for his company – and how those were recently reshaped by a trip to San Francisco – in techlife magazine.