PEMBERTON REDUX
New organizers to build on lessons learned from troubled 2008 event
New organizers say they have learned some valuable lessons from the chaos and mess of the 2008 festival, and are looking to a stellar lineup in 2014.
The Pemberton Music Festival is back. Sort of. Call it Pemberton 2.0. Organizers HUKA Entertainment want to build on the lessons learned from the 2008 event featuring Jay Z and Coldplay that was cause for great celebration and the source of a lot of grief, and elevate the event and the Pemberton area to new heights.
The festival will be returning July 18- 20 next year. Although no performers have yet been announced, festival organizers are promising a top- shelf roster of talent ranging from rock to pop to rap and electronic artists.
“I was actually ( originally) unaware of the ’ 08 event,” HUKA co- founder and CEO A. J. Niland said in phone interview with The Vancouver Sun.
“I was turned on to this site when I took a trip up here about a year and a half ago. I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful this place is. This may be one of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen.”
Niland said HUKA had studied the Live Nation event from 2008, which also included problems with garbage collection and insufficient portable washroom facilities.
Next year’s Pemberton Music Festival will feature consolidated camping with 25,000 spots available, ensuring there is no massive crowd movement during the festival, Niland explained.
An extensive shuttle service between Whistler and Pemberton will also ensure festivalgoers staying off- site will have easy access to the festival grounds, which will hold 35,000 people.
“The biggest thing everyone brings up is traffic,” Niland said.
As many will recall, gaining access to the site ahead of the ’ 08 festival proved difficult, with traffic jams extending for hours in the Sea to Sky corridor.
“We’ve got a pretty solid plan put together,” Niland said. “We brought in some new traffic engineers and some folks who are really experienced in the festival world executing traffic as challenging as this. I won’t take all the credit because, frankly, the Olympics in 2010 did a great deal for the roads and the infrastructure in the area.”
HUKA will be working in partnership with Vancouver promoter Paul Mercs Concerts to line up performers on a scale that goes “very deep.”
“It’s going to be very similar to other festivals that we’ve done,” Niland said, citing the Hangout Music Festival as an example.
Considered wildly successful, Hangout is a three- day fest that takes place yearly on a beach in Gulf Shores, Ala. This year’s performers included headliners Kings of Leon, Tom Petty and Stevie Wonder, along with the likes of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, The Shins, Bassnectar, Kendrick Lamar, Public Enemy and Dirty Projectors, among others.
“It’s very diverse and very deep — as you get to the third, fourth and fifth line, you’re still going to go, ‘ Oh wow, yes.’”
Niland said the event had also been planned with the blessing of the Lil’wat Nation, and that the festival would do justice to the vibe and the history of the area.
Tickets for the 2014 festival go on sale Friday at 9 a. m. For more information, visit pembertonmusicfestival.com.