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LIVE at Squamish rocks the town

Organizers already looking at 2013
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It came. It went. And, for the most part, it was awesome.

With over 20,000 people attending LIVE at Squamish's third year, Squamish had one of its busiest weekends ever. All the hotels were booked solid, the restaurants were slammed and, despite a hefty highway traffic jam on Saturday, it was a positive experience for festivalgoers and townsfolk alike.

"It was a fantastic event and a good economic generator for the community," said acting mayor Ron Sander.

Close to 12,000 people turned out on Saturday, which boasted a lineup including the Tragically Hip, Chromeo and The Sheepdogs. On Sunday, between 8,000 and 9,000 people turned out to see City and Colour and Mother Mother. On Friday night, another 3,200 people turned up for the pre-festival "hootenanny."

While the Sunday numbers were lower than organizers would like to have seen, executive producer Paul Runnals says that in terms of atmosphere and festival experience, 2012 far exceeded their expectations.

"What the experience was on sight was absolutely what we sought to create," Runnals says. "If there was anything that didn't quite meet our expectations, or our hopes anyway, it was seeing ...(fewer) people there on Sunday."

He says local ticket sales picked up dramatically in the days leading up to the festival, so much so that they had to restock Sea to Sky merchants selling tickets.

"What we don't know is if those were locals buying them or others who learned they could save service fees by buying locally," Runnals says. "It could be a mix of the two, but regardless, it was good for us to see them get moving."

He says organizers will also be looking at how Saturday morning's four-car accident on Highway 99, which clogged the flow of northbound traffic for several hours, affected audience numbers.

"Did we lose anybody to that whole traffic debacle, like people who bought tickets but never showed up? I don't know the answer yet but it's something we want to look at," Runnals says.

The traffic "debacle" caused serious delays for organizers, with artists, security, first aid and other festival personnel stuck in traffic along with festivalgoers. Everyone showed up at once as a result, which, says Runnals ,caused staff to scramble.

But by early evening, everything appeared to be running smoothly. Aside from the considerable lineups in the beer garden, which caused some flared tempers, Saturday evening had a very positive vibe all around.

Outside the festival grounds, very few festival-related incidents were reported over the weekend: two Squamish youths attempted to break into the festival on Friday evening and Sander says someone vandalized some trees downtown, though he admits that may not have been directly related to the festival.

Otherwise, the town was humming. It's this vibrancy that has inspired overwhelming support for the festival from locals.

"We've been told that a vast, vast majority of people in the community support (the festival) and hope it comes back year after year," Sander says. "You really get a great cross-section of people who attend it as well. It's not just the kids, it's right through the ages, especially when you get somebody like the Hip in there."

According to a District of Squamish parks and recreation master plan, 80 per cent of Squamish residents are supportive of hosting large events in the community, the most popular of which was a festival or concert.

As a result, Dan McRae, economic sustainability coordinator for the DOS, says the district is committed to growing the festival and aiding in its success for the long term.

"We know the community is behind it and we're going to continue to work with the event organizer to find ways to expand and continue with the success of the event," he says.

"Every year, we get better at hosting the event and working together to give the visitors the best experience that they can while they're here," he says.

No economic impact study regarding LIVE at Squamish has been done yet but the benefits have been considerable. McRae says he's heard from several restaurants that have reported record sales days, some of which had run out of food by the end of the weekend. The Zephyr Café told Pique that Sunday was the busiest day they have ever had.

Steve Fecho, chef and proprietor of The Cup Café and Bistro, says that the weekend was far busier than normal.

"It was busier for sure, and even compared to last year during the festival our numbers were up, fairly steadily," he says. "Sunday was probably 30 per cent busier than Saturday.

Organizers at Brand.LIVE are currently rethinking next year's dates — what dates in the summer will work best for attracting more international talent, and what days in the week will attract maximum audiences.

"Do we make Friday a more full-blown affair? Because we could. It's our own choice to do it as we've done it," Runnals says. "I guess the real question is would it resonate more with people who want to come up and camp, and do Friday/Saturday and either scale back or reconsider Sunday all together," he says.

Organizers will decide over the next month when the 2013 festival will be held. Runnals says that they hope to line it up with another major West Coast festival in order to reach talent already in the area. LIVE at Squamish faced challenges booking talent this year due to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which attracted many of the big name acts earlier in the month, and many of whom stayed in Europe to play other festivals, including the Reading and Leeds Music Festivals that were held the same weekend as LAS.

"Obviously we want this to become, if it isn't already, to be the marquee music festival in the west and we want to be able to grow it," Runnels says. "We want to expand the site and grow the capacity and those sorts of things."

Expanding the site and getting bigger bands is the easy part, he says. The difficulty is in the logistics — expanding the parking, getting people in and out of the festival, and ensuring that the community is not overrun.

"We don't want to lose the support of the community, so this kind of progressive growth is actually proving to be the right way to do it."

Sander says expansion of the festival site is something council may be interested in down the road, but it's a difficult idea to entertain at present, without organizers drafting a specific proposal.

"We'd need more information. It's tough to just give a carte blanche answer. You have to be able to support the people that would attend as well," he says. "You don't want to destroy anything to make that happen and you want to be able to presumably not just attend the event, but also camp or be able to stay somewhere without having to cause a big legacy problem."