Dust settles, but will festival return?

July 31, 2008

In the days after last weekend’s massive Pemberton Festival, Shane Bourbonnais’ email inbox has been flooded with messages from delighted concertgoers, local business owners and others who are raving about the inaugural event.


The comment he’s heard most often so far is “that was the best weekend of my life,” he said.


In fact, representatives of many bands are already calling to find out what’s happening for next year.

But Bourbonnais, president of touring and business development for festival producers Live Nation Canada, said he’s also getting “all kinds of calls” from people in other communities who would like to lure the successful festival away from Pemberton and into their own towns. An official from a town in the eastern U.S. has even offered to fly him out to look at a site.

There’s already been lots of talk about “next year” for the Pemberton Festival, but Bourbonnais said Tuesday (July 29) that at this point he can’t confirm there will be a Pemberton Festival 2009. The dust needs to settle and Live Nation, the Village of Pemberton and other stakeholders need to analyze where things stand, he said.

“I hope we can come back,” he said. “My heart’s in Pemberton. I want to come back.”

He said he hopes to be able to make an announcement about next year “soon.”
Bourbonnais said by Tuesday (July 29) the mainstage had already been removed and the Pemberton Airport was back to normal operations. The full site cleanup will likely take about two weeks, and then the fields will be reseeded.

“It’ll be a grassy field again before we know it,” he said.

In addition to the piles of garbage, some festivalgoers left tents, chairs, coolers and other gear on the site. Bourbonnais said people are welcome to come by and claim anything that’s been left behind, and a few “freelance” garbage collectors have already been gathering bottles to return for the deposit money.

Despite some operational glitches, Thursday’s (July 24) backlog of festival campers and the much-talked-about traffic woes that had motorists stranded between Whistler and Pemberton for hours each day, the extraordinary musical lineup and positive festival vibe had almost everybody won over by Sunday (July 27).


Many festival attendees told Bourbonnais that once the music started, all the crazy traffic and logistical headaches went away, he said. Others said some problems were to be expected because it was a first-time event.

Coldplay’s phenomenal closing set had all 40,000 ticket holders and event staff on their feet and singing along on Sunday night. The super group’s magical performance was the icing on an already-scrumptious musical cake that included Tom Petty, Nine Inch Nails, the Tragically Hip and Jay-Z headlining a roster of more than 120 performers.
Musicians, reporters and festival attendees alike commented on the stunning backdrop provided by Mount Currie and Pemberton’s natural beauty. Rolling Stone magazine declared that “the first annual Pemberton Festival will gladly take the title of next Glastonbury.”

Andrea Chopek and Ben Mayer came from Philadelphia for the festival, opting to stay in Whistler and take the shuttle back and forth to Pemberton. Despite the average two-hour bus ride to get from Whistler to the festival site each day (which caused the couple to miss the Airborne Toxic Event, the band they were most looking forward to), their only complaint was when the shuttle service stopped running on Friday (July 25) at 11:30 p.m.
The advertised shuttle hours were 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. daily. Things got a little hectic with people rushing the buses as another bus company had to step in to take shuttle passengers, Chopek said. By Saturday all the bugs seemed to have been worked out, she said.

“I think the festival has been fantastic — most of it,” she said. “I realize it’s the first one so there’s going to be some glitches.”

Chopek said she’s attended other multi-day music festivals, including Seattle’s Bumbershoot, four years in a row. “I think the venue and diversity of the bands here hands down is the best,” she said.

Both she and Mayer said they’d “absolutely” come back in future years for the Pemberton Festival, though they might try to stay in Pemberton to avoid the traffic.
Sisters Marcia and Marj Valenzuela travelled from Vancouver and were two of the first festival campers to arrive Thursday morning in time for the campground to open. The lack of information on how and where to check in, not knowing they had to park at the airport and take a shuttle to the campground, and the almost four hours it took to get to their tent site after arriving in Pemberton was a “nightmare,” Marj said. “It was brutal.”

But both agreed that the festival itself had been great and they would probably come back in future years.
“Because it’s the first one there’s going to be hiccups. But it can only get better and better,” Marcia said. “It’s a good start.”

Bourbonnais said though there were no serious traffic incidents that were festival-related, a few stalls added to the weekend’s backups. Organizers are considering opening the campgrounds another day earlier in future years to help spread out the arrivals, and carpooling and shuttle services will be encouraged more, he said.

As with any event that brings a lot of people to one spot, such as an NHL hockey game, traffic delays are to be expected. “There will be traffic in the future but we will try to make it better,” Bourbonnais said.

Some changes will also be made to the private security services, he said.
“We’re going to fine tune this thing and my goal is to make this one of the best festivals in the world,” he said.
Traffic was the top concern for RCMP at the festival, with few alcohol-related offences for the large crowd. Cst. Lea-Anne Dunlop, RCMP communications officer, said officers dealt with about 12 to 20 alcohol-related calls each day.
A strong police presence on site had many people thinking twice before doing something questionable, she said Monday (July 28).

“Hats off to the event-goers for being as well behaved as they were,” she said.
The festival’s 200-strong medical team was kept busy, but mostly with minor issues such as dehydration, alcohol problems, respiratory issues from the dust and small foot injuries, said Dr. Sam Gutman, the festival’s medical director.

By Sunday evening only about five or six people had to be transported off the site for further treatment, including one heart attack and a serious peanut allergy, he said. Both cases had been treated and the patients were doing well.

Between the 14-bed medical centre, six first aid tents, six roving response teams, the safe zone and eight ambulances, almost 1,000 patients were seen on the festival site each day, Dr. Gutman said. “It’s been very, very busy but (there have been) no significant issues,” he said.