In any good relationship there needs to be some give and take.
One partner cooks, the other does the dishes.
Maybe one partner folds the laundry while the other sorts it.
Point being, any healthy relationship is an equal partnership to both parties.
I'm not so sure that's the case with regards to the Squamish Valley Music Festival and Squamish residents.
Don't get me wrong. The SVMF has outdone itself every year and is the biggest event on the calendar by a mile. The town is packed, business is booming and the buzz from the event can be felt all across the province.
But now the SVMF wants more and there just might not be that much to give.
Festival organizers want the event to double in size but the space kind of isn't there. Every hotel in town is packed over the weekend of the event and the camping has been packed to the gills the last few years. They've even secured additional camping on several of the local school fields and there's also the new construction of the camping sites in the Squamish Business Park.
Festival organizers seem to be asking for more and more for 2014, but still haven't announced a single performing act.
I believe a big part of it is the re-introduction of the Pemberton Music Festival. Pemberton happens in July and could potentially take away some of the steam that SVMF has built up in the past few years.
Pemberton promoters Huka Entertainment have promised big-name talent will come to the Spud Valley and their track record with the Hangout Music Festival in Alabama has proven they can attract it.
Huka Entertainment CEO A.J. Niland told reporters that the talent at Pemberton would be on calibre with the 2008 Pemberton event. Of course, that event featured a little guy called Jay-Z.
SVMF organizers seem to be scrambling to secure their foothold in the summer festival market and with all of the camping demands, they need to get several big name acts for this year's event.
I'm totally on board with everything to do with the SVMF but they need to throw Squamish a bone here. Announce someone that wows our socks off, offer a discount to locals - just send some sort of message that they appreciate locals' willingness to bend over backwards to make the festival successful.
The Pemberton Music Festival has a one-month head start on SVMF this year and let's hope all of the people heading up to the Spud Valley in July return to the Sea to Sky Corridor in August for a (hopefully) bigger and better party.
