Kelowna hits the right note with music festivals

Summer 2016 was the summer of concerts and festivals in Kelowna and that got people talking. These concerts, like Center of Gravity and Rock the Lake, brought people into our city, business into our stores and internationally known musicians in our midst.

Not everyone was happy about the concerts, but why focus on the negative, when we can focus on the positive?

Kelowna’s Wayne Maglio has worked in the music industry for more than a decade. He worked as a stage technician at Lollapalooza, Hedley Blast, Merrit Mountain Music and has even worked on Michael Jackson and Tragically Hip tours in the past.

Maglio attended this year’s Rock the Lake and said the complaints coming from people about the festivals are unjust.

"As far as those noise complaints go, jeez, Kelowna is growing. If they're going to complain about noise they have to complain about fireworks, they have to complain about ambulance and everything else."

One plus Maglio mentioned is that the festival allowed for people in wheelchairs to attend, which isn’t usually possible during outside festivals.

"Handicap people just can't get around. It's a strain for them to get into a port-a-potty, but having it there, at Prospera Place, with that venue open with the concession and bathrooms, all those facilities for people were unbelievable."

Maglio was at the festival for two out of its three days. During those days, he said he didn’t see any garbage or beer cans on the ground, even though people could carry their drinks with them wherever they went.

“It was like Disneyland,” Maglio told KelownaNow.

He also said he didn’t see any fist fights and that staff members took care of those who had drank a little too much.

Const. Jesse O’Donaghey with the Kelowna RCMP said there was a visible presence of police officers at the festival.

“For the most part, police found that festival goers were well behaved, dealing mainly with incidents of public intoxication and consumption of alcohol. There were no events of real note and the difference in the number of police files between the festival in 2014 and 2016 was not significant."

Sean Bianchini, Events Manager with Prospera Place said the feedback for Rock the Lake was better than they expected.

"We knew people wanted to come. It was our job to create the event, organize it and manage it, the way that people would enjoy and want to come back next year. Looking back, we had high expectations, but it went a lot better than anyone could have imagined."

Prospera place will begin to look at what other genres of music they can bring to Kelowna, since Rock the Lake hit a good demographic of people who were hungry for rock.

Bianchini mentioned that he knew it was going to be a loud concert, but the positive feedback about the shows outweighed the negative complaints about the noise.

“We did announce it far in advance, it's not like it was something that came out of the blue. We always hear the negative. If it wasn't loud enough, we would have heard from the people here and if it's too loud we hear from the people outside.”

Another huge festival that took place this year was Center of Gravity.

The festival is one people publicly love to hate and hate to love. Some Kelowna folk run away from the city during the weekend, but some people run towards City Park to experience the concerts and sports first-hand.

With an expected increase of visitors to the Okanagan during the July festivals, RCMP brought in some back up. The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of British Columbia, team members from the uniform gang enforcement team and the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team all patrolled the gated festival.

At the end of the festival, RCMP released information saying there were 100 fewer arrests than the 2015 concert. Police responded to about 257 calls, compared to 384 last year. Over the weekend, a total of 83 people were transported from the festival grounds to Kelowna cells.

Many of the arrests were drug related, as plain-clothes officers saw many drug buys first hand.

Maglio said his teenage daughter went to Center of Gravity and he was confident she was going to be fine.

"I'm just surprised how well controlled these events are in Kelowna. The suggestions to move them out of the city, I think is a real bad idea because that puts people on the roads and away from bus service. Kelowna has services, let’s not lose those."

Chris Shauf, Director of Marketing & Communications for Tourism Kelowna said concerts are a benefit to Kelowna. Tourism Kelowna will be conducting an economic impact survey later this year with up-to-date statistics on how many visitors are coming and how much money they are spending while in the city.

Although those numbers aren’t available just yet, Shauf said he can tell they have an influx of guests in the summer.

"They are an important draw and they give travellers another reason to come. It's fantastic when a city has a nice variety of festivals and concerts and events. It really does create that energy and excitement and vibrancy and Kelowna has that."

One thing is for sure, many people love these concerts and festivals. Tickets sell fast, people show up in droves and music is played. Hell, tickets are already on sale for Rock the Lake 2 in 2017. That has to show some sort of success, right?

What are your thoughts on concerts in Kelowna? Do you think they’re benefitting the city or do you think they’re a deterrent?