Got back early this morning from the first ever Pemberton Music Festival. It was a solid 3 days of fantastic music, traffic jams, dust storms, and peculiar weather. All in all though one fantastic weekend. As with the “first” of most things, this festival was not without problems. The major issue of course being the anticipated traffic issues, and the what should have been foreseen issue of the shuttle buses.

So I will give my two cents on the major issues Pemberton faced, and maybe a solution or two on how they could have done things better.

The Bad

Parking off site and shuttle to festival grounds: This was in my eyes the greatest blunder they did. I realize it was likely done as they likely didn’t have enough room on the festival grounds to handle both tents and cars. If they were to keep the external parking and shuttle system they need to make some serious changes. The first major issue with their current setup was that the parking area (the airport) was in a location that only had a single access road. What this means is that both the shuttles, and all incoming vehicles use the same access road into the parking area. Thus when traffic into the parking area increases, the frequency of shuttles decreases due to increased traffic. This in turns increases the number of people waiting in the parking lot for a shuttle, which in turn slows down the number of vehicles entering the parking area, which essentially creates one hell of a nightmare.

The smarter thing to do would have been to pick a parking site that would have two access roads. One which the festival goers could take to and from the camping grounds, and a second access road dedicated purely to the shuttle buses to move between the parking lot and the festival grounds. This would have kept the shuttles moving smoothly, would have sped up the traffic moving to and from the parking area, and overall would have reduced the headache that everyone seemed to experience on their way into camp.

The next major issue with the shuttles was that everyone was putting their gear directly into the bus. This caused the buses to run about half full of people, and half full of gear. That is not a very optimized situation. If they wanted to optimize the seat space in the shuttles they could have had them all pull a trailer behind the bus used for all the luggage people had, while keeping the bus for what it should be used for; transporting people. The other solution would have been to have flatbed trucks to transport peoples luggage (which could be tagged) then have people collect their luggage on arrival to the festival grounds.

Lastly I think the final problem with their setup (at least when we arrived) was that they were largely understaffed at the parking area and the staff that were there were very confused about what they were suppose to do. This caused a lot of chaos in the parking area, and turned things into a mess of every man for himself.

Traffic: While we didn’t have to compete too much with the traffic, it was an issue for a lot of people. 3+ hours drives from Whistler to Pemberton for a drive that normally takes 25 minutes is ridiculous. I think part of the reason for this was due to the poor organization of the parking facilities, but also due to the single lane roads. The parking issue can be fixed. Unfortunately unless the government is willing to twin the roads all the way to Pemberton there is not much one can do about the single lane traffic.

Dust: Having the festival on a farm that probably hadn’t been rained on in over a month caused for some extremely dry land. Add 40,000 people and you create one dusty hell. I know the organizers tried to mitigate the issue by spraying down the grounds with water, however that only last for a short time before the dusts starts to be kicked up again. It also didn’t help that they had motor vehicles driving all over the place further adding to the dusty hell that was experienced. For a first festival though there is not much more I think they could have done. For the future however, if they are serious about turning this festival into an annual event, and to re-invest into their festival grounds they should look into installing sod. I went to Coachella a year ago, and Bonnaroo this year. Both festivals in very hot and dry locations. Both festival sporting nice fields of sod. Both festivals were very much dust free. (or at least much less than we experienced in Pemberton).

Bathroom facilities: Probably could have been a few more toilets in the camping areas. Long waits, no toilet paper, and “full to the rim” toilets were some of the major complaints I think a lot of campers had. A few more toilets in the camping area, and more cleanup services and I think people would have been happy.

Bacardi Tent: The Bacardi B-Live tent (the tent were all the electronic acts were) was a closed tent, and sold alcohol and thus had to be run like a club. This meant that they had to have a maximum capacity on the tent (which was a very low 2,500 people), and also meant that it was virtually impossible to get into. If they restricted the sale of alcohol to a beer gardens near the tent, opened up the tent on 3 sides, it would have made the tent a lot more accessible for people, and given people who didn’t plan on spending the entire day in there a chance to see some of the acts.

Those were essentially my issues with the festival, and in no way are they unsolvable problems for next year.

The Good

Music: The music all weekend was fantastic. It was a excellent lineup, and most bands seemed generally happy to be there, and put on some great shows. The set times were for the most part on time, and there were plenty of viewing areas to catch the acts you wanted to see.

Camping: While the camping was a bit unorganized in terms of plots (again I think they were very understaffed and unorganized in terms of dealing with the number of people), the campsites were all extremely close to the festival grounds. They also had an in/out policy which meant you could always return to your camp for a drink, something to eat, or a quick nap. They were also very unstrict about what you brought too and from your camp, which meant that you could simply go back to your camp, mix yourself a drink, and return to the festival, saving yourself the pain of shelling out $7 for a beer or mixed drink.

Water Stations: There was a good number of clean drinking water stations that allowed you to fill up your water bottles. This was a cost saver, and a great way to keep people hydrated all weekend. These water stations also doubled as showers for campers. While the water was glacier cold, it sure felt good in the extreme heat.

Vibe: There was a lot of talk before the festivals that it could attract a very rowdy crowd, that would be intent of getting drunk, starting fights, and destroying stuff. While a lot of people were getting drunk, and I must say a very large number of douchebags, most people were really tame and just their to enjoy the music and have a good time. Having a crowd like this makes for an enjoyable weekend.

Friends: Having the festival so close to home meant having a lot of friends in attendance at the festival. As the saying goes, The More the Merrier.

The Music

For the most part I stuck to the main stage all weekend (along with everyone else it seemed). Here is the list of bands I caught this weekend, organized by day:

Day 1: Metric, Wolfmother, Serj Tankian, Interpol, NIN
Day 2: Sam Roberts Band, My Morning Jacket, The Tragically Hip, Black Mountain, The Flaming Lips, Tom Petty
Day 3: Inward Eye, Wintersleep, Death Cab For Cutie, Matisyahu, Jay-Z, Coldplay

I think my favorite acts all weekend were probably Metric, NIN, My Morning Jacket, Tom Petty and Wintersleep. Jay-Z was also highly entertaining.

I really have to say that Wintersleep put on one hell of a show. With borrowed equipment no less. They said that they had had all their equipment stolen a day or two before the festival so they had to borrow equipment from the other bands playing that day (unfortunately it meant Weighty Ghost was played on a wrongly tuned acoustic borrowed from Sam Roberts; I still enjoyed the song though!) . It didn’t seem to get them down however, as they seemed really happy to be there. Not only that they played probably the best set I have ever seen them play. They had a big crowd out for their show too, who knew their songs, and were not afraid to jump, clap or sing along. Their set was much heavier than the previous time I saw them (in London a few months ago), which for me made them sound that much better.

After having only caught a few songs of My Morning Jacket at Bonnaroo I made sure to get up front and catch the full set at Pemberton. While it was restricted to 45 minutes (they played over their limit at close to an hour), they played a really fantastic set. Touch Me Pt 2 was fantastic as ever, and Jimmy James was all over the place. He even dedicated a song to the lone moose, and lone grizzly bear that maybe wandering in the forests surrounding the festivals.

Tom Petty was also a blast. His set was non stop one hit after another, and the crowd ate it up. People were dancing and singing everywhere. Was really fun to see him play, and his stage setup was also pretty cool. The biggest complaint I heard about his set was that he didn’t play You Don’t Know How It Feels, however he spent the morning sound checking the song, so essentially we all got to hear it.

Finally NIN put in another solid show. I don’t know another band that is as consistently awesome live as NIN are. I guess it is the perfectionist in Reznor. Their stage setup for the show was similar to Sasquatch a few years ago where the bring down the gate in front of the stage and project pixelated images over top of the band. I think they have taken the visual to another level for this festival, as they were even more impressive than when I saw them at Sasquatch.

Conclusion

Pemberton was a really enjoyable weekend, and a really good start to what hopefully becomes an annual event. It wasn’t without problems, but like I outlined above, they are issues that could be easily fixed for next year. With that said I have to give the Pemberton Festival a thumbs up, and will gladly attend next year.