Music festival on pace to better ’17 attendance
Better weather a likely factor, executive-artistic director says
Bluesfest is on track to beat last year’s attendance with marquee acts Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band and Beck still to come as the festival resumes Tuesday.
During Monday ’s off-day, executive and artistic director Mark Monahan reflected on how fans were reacting to changes in the 2018 edition of the festival, including a new stage configuration, enhanced security measures at the entrance gate and a new smoking area coupled with more stringent no-smoking rules on the LeBreton Flats festival grounds.
“There’s a diversity in the lineup, and the crowds have been so different every night,” Monahan said. “It’s been refreshing to see so many different fans enjoying the festival in their own way.”
Bluesfest officials reported big attendance numbers in Thursday ’s opening-night crowd for Bryan Adams and in the teeming Saturday crowd for Shawn Mendes.
Monahan said the fans of each respective Canadian star made for “two very different,” though equally enthusiastic crowds.
“The crowds have been solid. We’re up from last year, but that could also be due to weather,” Monahan said, recalling last year’s at times “dodgy” conditions.
A large crowd also swelled through the day Sunday for The Strumbellas and Brett Eldredge, who shared duties on the City Stage, now the only stage in the festival’s main bowl.
The Claridge Stage, which was positioned along Booth Street in years past, has been moved to the riverbank, while the Black Sheep Stage remains on the north side of the Canadian War Museum along with the indoor Barney Danson Theatre stage.
Monahan said Bluesfest made that move — featuring three outdoor stages instead of four — for logistic and practical reasons.
“We often found with the headliner on the ‘B’ stage, they were requiring a level of production we didn’t have (on the smaller side stage), but that we could easily accommodate on the main stage,” said Monahan, who decided instead to book “B” stage headliners as opening acts on the “A” stage.
“That’s why we have the likes of Greta Van Fleet (opening for Foo Fighters on Tuesday) and Sturgill Simpson (opening for Beck on Friday).”
Monahan said the new stage configuration was also necessary to accommodate a larger entrance gate along Booth Street, where security staff required more space for enhanced
screening measures.
“We have made changes this year in response to people’s concerns about security and that has worked — with some hiccups — in the process at the gates, and that has worked well,” Monahan said.
Following opening night complaints about long lineups at the Booth Street gate, Bluesfest released a statement pledging to do better. Monahan said the flow through the gates had since improved, but added the enhanced screening had allowed security to “isolate” issues they had seen in recent editions of the festival.
Monahan said he had seen a “dramatic reduction” of issues related to underage drinking and fence-jumpers. Officials are still assessing the site’s new smoking section, Monahan said, explaining he had heard anecdotally from non-smoking patrons who “appreciate it,” while acknowledging there had been some “growing pains” with the new policy.
Monahan also said he has reached out to his security team and to his City of Ottawa liaison about a swarming incident Saturday on an OC Transpo bus heading back from Bluesfest. That incident is being investigated by police.