Beer, BBQ and B.C. Bud: A music festival is born
PEMBERTON, B.C. — “Oh my God, it smells like cows.” And with that comment, as she stepped off the shuttle bus yesterday from one of the dusty festival parking lots, an urban hipster began her three-day Pemberton Festival experience. Indeed, there are many cows in this lush valley, but their “essence” was quickly replaced with the scent of young humanity: beer, barbecue and B.C. Bud.
The giant, inaugural music festival, featuring international acts such as Coldplay (one of the festival’s producers), Jay-Z and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, has invaded the quiet village of Pemberton, about 150 kilometres north of Vancouver. The population of slightly more than 2,000 has swelled to about 40,000 this weekend, wreaking havoc on the roads - and at the festival site.
Some campers who arrived Thursday night reported waiting hours at the Pemberton airport, which has been turned into a parking lot, for the shuttle to take them to the campsite. For some, the shuttle never came, and they had to camp at the parking lot.
“[Thursday night] was hell,” said Lauren, 18, who travelled from Edmonton for the festival, and wound up camping in the parking lot, along with two friends.
“There was no people directing you, or anything,” said Jason Blatchford, 26, of Burnaby, B.C. “It was just mayhem.”
Festival organizer Shane Bourbonnais said campers were told to arrive between 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday and when it became clear that they would keep showing up long past that, organizers tried to accommodate them.
“I was there [Thursday] night loading buses until 2 in the morning,” he said yesterday. “It was unfortunate the way it went down, but I think everybody’s now on the site having a good time.”
Mr. Bourbonnais said 20 shuttle buses were added yesterday and more would be running tomorrow and Monday for departure.
“Obviously in a first-year festival, you can plan and plan and plan but until you actually open the gates up [you don’t know what will happen]. So now we’ve made the adjustments and we’ll fix it.”
The RCMP said frustrated campers who drove directly to the site yesterday to unload their camping gear instead of waiting for the shuttle were complicating matters because the road was so narrow, the buses couldn’t pass the parked cars. “It was terrible,” said Constable Kalinda Link.
Traffic on the under-construction Sea-to-Sky Highway was very heavy yesterday. Constable Link said as of about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, there were backups beginning at Horseshoe Bay, more than 100 kilometres south of Pemberton.
The road from Pemberton village to the festival, at the base of Mount Currie, was jammed. Some people gave up on their hitchhiking plans, dropping their thumbs and started walking - often moving faster than the cars stuck in traffic.
Mr. Bourbonnais’s vision has seen this quiet mountain valley - where people generally come in the summer to get away from it all (he himself has a vacation home here) - transformed into a small city.
The festival is a behemoth, the biggest thing to happen in this out-of-the-way place that anyone can remember. It’s expected to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local economy - and millions to the district as a whole.
Prices in town were reasonable compared with the food on offer at the festival, where the going rate for a bottle of pop or water is $4.
“I’m fine with not bringing my own food in, but I don’t want to get ripped off out of my pants,” said Liam Johnston, 19, of Saltspring Island. (Concert-goers were not permitted to bring their own food or drinks to the festival site.)
Music fan Richard Ward, 52, travelled to Pemberton from Kelowna for the festival. With his travel, ticket, VIP parking pass and Whistler hotel, he figures he’d spent about $1,000 by the time he walked in the gate, and estimates he’ll spend another $500 by the time it’s all over. “It’s worth it for me.”
As the bands hit the stage yesterday afternoon, any lingering grumpiness over check-in hassles and inflated drink prices seemed to dissipate.
“When you’re in a once-in-a-lifetime situation, who cares what it costs?” asked Richard Fonseca, 26, of Vancouver.
Added his pal Patrick Whibley, 28: “This could be the Woodstock of our generation.”
At the festival
The three-day Pemberton
Festival, by the numbers:
0: Amount of outside food and drink allowed at the concert site
$60: Cost to camp, per person,
for three days
$90: Cost to park for three days
($50 for campers)
$0: Cost to park if there are four
or more people in the vehicle
37,000: Maximum number of tickets
sold per day
770: Number of volunteers
480: Number of security staff
280: Number of medical personnel
on site
600: Number of porta-potties
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080726.BCPEMBERTON26/TPStory/TPNational/Music/