Traffic jams, fields of garbage, noisy evenings: Some Squamish residents couldn't wait to wave goodbye to the Squamish Valley Music Festival.
With 12 months' worth of planning having been put into the event, Squamish resident Jason Medcraft questioned why the Sea to Sky Highway was clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic on Thursday (Aug. 8).
We were stuck at Murrin Lake, Medcroft said.
His work commute from downtown Vancouver, which usually takes 50 minutes, turned into a painful four hours. When he asked a police officer what was going on, Medcroft said, the officer said nothing was planned.
It was a mess, Medcroft said. Nobody had really done any planning.
Two southbound lanes on Highway 99 sat virtually empty. Medcraft queried why a checkpoint for residents and through traffic wasn't set up by Murrin Lake.
Municipal staff are reviewing the festival's procedures, Squamish Mayor Rob Kirkham said. The campers' check-in point, which was adjacent to the Squamish Adventure Centre, might be moved to a location further away from Highway 99. Officials may also consider creating a counterflow lane, as Medcraft suggested, Kirkham said.
It's not just traffic that had Medcraft reeling. Once the festival-goers were gone, they left behind a mountain of litter, he said.
Despite the trash, the soccer fields at Brennan Park Recreation Centre are in good shape, Kirkham said. The fields were swept with metal detectors readying for a ball tournament this weekend.
Teal Imbeau was one of the 80 people hired by festival organizers to clean up the grounds.
Compared to last year I think it is a lot better because it's contained to within the fence, she said of the trash, adding that it didn't appear that any turf was damaged.
There were complaints about the system used by festival organizers to sell alcohol on the site. Festival-goer Deena Tokaryk said she had no problem with the system of loading cash onto attendees' wristbands but she did have concerns with the $2.50 fee charged for each upload, or the $5 she was charged to get a refund of unused cash on Friday.
You were forced to estimate how much you were going to drink, so you didn't want to go way over, but no problem, it can be refunded. But then there was the fact that refunds were only available from 11 p.m. and midnight each day, she said, adding that the time restriction resulted in lineups.
On Friday night, word filtered through the line that people were being levied a $5 service charge to get refunds, she said.
On Friday night, word filtered through the line that people were being levied a $5 service charge to get refunds, she said.
We're already coming there and spending all this money to be there, purchasing food and drinks, and to have additional service charges, it just seems unfair, Tokaryk said.
Paul Runnals, SVMF executive producer, on Monday (Aug. 12) admitted that because of a communication glitch, a few festival-goers were mistakenly charged the $5 fee.
For some reason, I don't know why, there was a rumour started that there was a $5 service fee to get a refund, he said. Some of the people at the counter heard that and a few people did get charged, and we're trying to reach those people and make sure they get a refund.
As for the $2.50-per-upload fee, Runnals said, It's just like people going to bank machines, just like any consumer, any time you pull money out of any system, there's a service charge. That's certainly not unusual.
Also on Friday, a group of festival-goers estimated at 1,000 strong were prevented from re-entering the festival site after exiting to go for walks or retrieve clothing from campsites or vehicles, festival-goer Josh Hemond wrote in an email to The Chief. The situation came about because of a policy of not allowing re-entries after 11 p.m., Hemond said.
Attendees weren't informed of the policy before they left the site, he said.
Runnals said organizers had adopted a policy of closing the gates at 11 p.m. because it's been our experience that by 11, most people are in for the night.
However, after Friday's situation arose, organizers allowed re-entry to the site on Saturday after 11.
I can understand that there might be people who are in bikinis most of the day and wanted to go out and get a hoodie or something to stay warm after dark. That was a concern on Friday night, he said. On Saturday we fixed it, and it won't happen again.
The District of Squamish did receive some noise complaints during the festival. At the end of the day it's a side effect of hosting a music festival, Kirkham said.
Either the community is accepting of that or they are not, he said.
