A beloved waterfront concert at Victoria's Inner Harbour will see some major changes this year as the usual single-day event gets drawn out into a full-blown summer festival.

Symphony Splash will not be held on the water this year, due to issues with the aging stage that traditionally floated on a barge over the past two decades.

"Sadly, we had a stage setup which was almost 20 years old and it was no longer insurable," said Victoria Symphony CEO Matthew White.

"Figuring out how to get a new one built was not going to happen on the timeline that we were looking at," he said.

Now, the Victoria Symphony has transformed its usual single-day concert into a summer series dubbed "Splash Around Town."

"After two years of the pandemic, we really wanted to remind everybody in Victoria of the importance of gathering together for enjoying music and its importance in creating community," said White.

The concert series kicks off Friday night, and the entire series features three ticketed shows, as well as five free concerts taking place at the Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park scheduled throughout the week.

"[It's] not actually classical music for the most part," said White.

"It's music as diverse as Gamelan music, we've got Pablo Cardenas, Afro-Cuban music, Celtic music, so there’s a huge variety of concerts there," he said.

The festival wraps up next Sunday, July 31, with a massive stage set up on the lawn of the B.C. Legislature.

There will be food trucks, a kids' zone, and a beer garden.

The concert series finale features the Victoria Symphony and the Stephen Page Trio.

Page is famously known as a co-founding member of the iconic Canadian group, the Barenaked Ladies.

"It’s potentially going to be an even bigger event that ends and culminates with the big fireworks and the pipers and all of the things that people have gotten used to over the years," said White.

Splash around town kicks off Friday night with Dee Daniels: Great Ladies of Swing at the Royal Theatre.

A full schedule of events can be found on the Victoria Sympohony website.