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Pemberton Festival a success

Organizers say operational glitches can be ironed out
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Fest Fans About 40,000 people came out to the past weekend's inaugural Pemberton Festival. Photo by Holly Fraughton

Circle July 24, 25 and 26 on your calendar — that’s when organizers are hoping to hold Pemberton Festival 2009.

The dust has barely settled on the site of last weekend’s festival, and already the buzz is building over which big names will perform next year.

But the first-year festival wasn’t without its logistical issues — getting to the site was a nightmare for many, with some even spending Thursday night at the airport parking area.

In an interview Tuesday Shane Bourbonnais, president of North American touring and business development for Live Nation, the company responsible for the inaugural event and 30 similar festivals worldwide, said there were many lessons learned at the first-year festival. Live Nation will be busy trying to figure out ways to combat problems with dust, garbage and transportation for future Pemberton Festivals.

“(It’s a) huge learning experience, and you never know how things are going to react until it happens, right?”

He said the transportation plan in place was more than adequate, but there were some issues with subcontractors executing it properly.

“You can pull together the best plan possible, but… if it’s not executed, it’s worthless,” Bourbonnais added.

At a press conference held Friday, Bourbonnais announced that they were just 100 tickets shy of reaching maximum capacity for the site — 40,000 people — adding that the response to the festival was “beyond our expectations.”

Bourbonnais said they were ready for the crowds, adding that they had half of the RVs loaded in within an hour and a half. They had surveyed camping ticket buyers and 48 per cent had said they planned to be early birds, arriving on Thursday rather than the first day of the festival, Friday.

But too many arrived late in the day Thursday, which caused some serious “operational hiccups” and led to people being bussed to the site as late as 2 a.m. Friday. To help shorten wait times for shuttles, they increased the number of busses from 30 to 50 on Friday. Unfortunately, the problem didn’t seem to be totally resolved by Sunday evening, when many festival goers made a rush for their cars and still ended up stuck in traffic for hours.

Traffic between Pemberton and Whistler was also an issue at times each day, as some people commuted from hotel rooms in Whistler to the festival site.

Whether they were waiting in traffic, or in long lineups at Port-A-Potties, showers, concessions or the Bacardi B-Live Tent, visitors to the first Pemberton Festival learned the importance of patience. Despite the lineups, most people seemed to feel that three days of stellar performances from artists like Jay Z, Tom Petty, N.E.R.D., Coldplay and many more were well worth the wait.

Tina Draker, of Victoria, was waiting in a crowded Pony Espresso with her family on Sunday afternoon. Draker brought her son and seven-year-old nephew, a huge Tom Petty fan, to the festival, and was trying to get out to enjoy the beautiful scenery and local hospitality during the earlier part of each day.

She was pleased with the event, despite the fact she missed Sam Roberts’s performance because they were stuck in traffic on their way back from visiting Whistler.

When she first arrived on site with her family, Draker was worried they would be surrounded by a rowdy crowd all weekend.

“When we showed up, they hadn’t gotten a family area set up yet, and when I saw what was going on at the tarmac in the airport, I was like, ‘okay, we can’t have a six-year-old around this,’” she said, adding that there was a lot of inappropriate language.

But organizers quickly addressed her concerns, and the Drakers spent the weekend in the quiet family area.

Draker attended Merritt Mountain Music Festival a few years ago, and said that in comparison, Pemberton Festival was really well run, considering that campers are separated from their vehicles. Next year, she would consider returning with an R.V., so it would be easier to explore the surrounding community during the day and still return in time for the performances.

Kristie Sandquist and Lexi Dewhirst made a road trip from Alberta to experience their first music festival.

“We had no idea what to expect, absolutely none,” Sandquist said.

Dewhirst chimed in, “It’s crazy!”

They were both camping at the site, and were unimpressed with the number and cleanliness of the Port-A-Potty facilities, and the lack of garbage collection.

“Other than that, we haven’t seen any major problems. We haven’t heard about anything getting wrecked or broken,’’ Sandquist said, adding that all of the musical performances had run smoothly.

They also didn’t experience any major delays in getting to the site, though they heard of people who did.

“Friends of mine, they got there at 4 in the afternoon and they got into their site at 10:30 the next morning,” Dewhirst said.

If organizers iron out the kinks with the transportation and washroom facilities, both women said they would happily return for a second year.

Members of local government also seem pleased with the outcome of the new event. At an SLRD meeting held Monday morning, bleary-eyed board members listened to the comments of Chief Administrative Officer, Paul Edgington. He said that agencies handling health and safety issues were satisfied with the way things were run over the weekend, with not one dissatisfied comment from Vancouver Coastal Health, the local health clinic, or on-site medical teams.

“The biggest question is, ‘when do we start planning for next year?’” Edgington said.

Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy was on-hand to help out with the shuttling problems on Thursday night, and also spent a lot of time sitting in traffic on his tractor, bringing produce from North Arm Farms to the on-site market. He believes the technical issues with traffic can be worked out.

“We were here working until 1 o’clock last night and, frankly, there were some people that definitely had more than enough to drink, but for the most part, I thought the crowds were great,” he said at the festival site, adding that he believes the alcohol ban at least deterred people from bringing in mass quantities of alcohol.

“The crowd that I’ve seen has been great and that, to me, is the way to judge the event, is if it’s a happy, positive feeling to the whole thing, and so far that’s been my experience,” Sturdy said.

Almost all of the local residents Sturdy has spoken with have been positive about the massive event, which saw 40,000 people added to their community of about 2,200 for the weekend.

Len and Patty Ritchie own land near the festival site. With a smile, they commented that their sheep seemed surprisingly interested in the festival, crowding around the fence and munching away to the music.

“The quote that I get the most from people: ‘best weekend of my life,’ which is like, wow, that just makes me feel incredible,” Bourbonnais said, adding that there was a great spirit and energy at the festival, and the overall vibe was “absolutely incredible.”

“Someone sent me a bunch of photos on a disc this morning, and it was just crowd shots, and I was looking at my wife this morning and I said, ‘look at this — everyone’s smiling.’”