By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Tweens. Tweens everywhere.
I get to the Cornwall Centre an hour and a half before anything is scheduled to happen, and it’s already packed with fans, wearing their most hopeful faces and craning their necks.
This is the Juno Fan Fare – a chance for fans to connect with some of the Juno nominees, even if they don’t have tickets to the broadcast on Sunday.
The largely tween demographic of the audience is unsurprising – the artists at Fan Fare are the bigger names in the younger crowds, like Marianas Trench, Down With Webster, Ten Second Epic, Dragonette, and Shawn Hook.
The event was hosted by MuchMusic’s Scott Willats, Lauren Toyota, and T-RexXx, who passed out prizes like it was going out of style.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” one young fan chanted from the front lines of the crowd, clutching a hand-made sign and staring at the MTV hosts.
“Are you ready to make some noise?” Willats bellowed to the crowd.
They responded in exactly the way you’d expect.
The team introduced Shawn Hook first, who played an acoustic song for the rapt audience. The rest of the artists filed on stage in turn, reaching a climax of applause with Marianas Trench.
The artists good-naturedly signed everything from posters to purses, guitars to biceps.
On my way out I passed some extremely confused middle-aged shoppers.
“Who are these people?” one asked, incredulous.
But it was clear the tweens knew exactly who they were looking at.
“I love you! I love you!” a fresh-faced fan on an overlooking balcony screamed to Ten Second Epic.
And she was not the only one.
