Whistler – The clock is ticking for a repeat Pemberton Festival, Shane Bourbonnais said Tuesday (Nov. 18), and the organizational team behind the landmark event is “very, very concerned.”
Without approval from B.C.’s Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) to use the festival site on Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) property for a second time, organizers haven’t had the certainty to work on securing the supply contracts and bands they will need for a successful festival in Pemberton in 2009, according to Bourbonnais, president of touring and business development Canada for the Live Nation concert promoters.
“We’re trying to do the things that we committed to do (to improve the festival planning for 2009)… but our hands are tied,” Bourbonnais said.
Bourbonnais told the community at a September public meeting that he would bring the event back to Pemberton only if he could make sure the 2009 edition would be better than the first festival.
No one at Live Nation wants to see a repeat of the traffic and garbage problems that affected the 2008 festival, Bourbonnais said, so he wanted to take early steps to line up contractors who could prevent that.
The ALC was meeting this week, and Boubonnais said he was told that the festival application is on the agenda. Live Nation officials also plan to meet this week to discuss their position, Bourbonnais added.
Without ALC approval to use the large, flat site next to Highway 99 between Pemberton and the industrial park, planning has stalled.
“We’re shut down, we’re not doing anything — we don’t know what we can do,” Bourbonnais said.
After the 2008 festival, which brought 40,000 people and an estimated $20 million in revenue to the Pemberton area, ALC directors expressed concerns that repeat events could have a detrimental effect on the high-grade farmland. The ALC’s initial approval said the promoters would have to find another site for future years.
In a Nov. 4 letter to the ALC, Bourbonnais wrote that organizers have considered several other locations between Whistler and D’Arcy, but none would meet all the requirements.
Bourbonnais said he couldn’t sign a top traffic manager for the festival without the approvals in place, and that person has since been hired elsewhere.
What’s more, the high-profile bands Bourbonnais would want to snap up for the 2009 festival are already cementing their touring schedules.
“The talent is booking up… we’re not imposing a deadline, the industry is imposing a deadline,” Bourbonnais said.
Bourbonnais said he isn’t sure what can fix the situation at this point, even if the ALC approves Live Nation’s application.
Despite the current uncertainty, Bourbonnais said the support the festival has garnered from Pemberton and area community members and officials has been “fabulous.”
Without the support of Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy, Electoral Area C Director Susie Gimse, Economic Development Consultant Alexandra Ross, and Paul Selina and Sandy Ryan of the Pemberton and District Chamber of Commerce, “we would have been dead a month ago,” Bourbonnais said.
Gimse confirmed the application was on the ALC’s agenda for this week, and said she hopes the land guardians will say yes and everything can come together.
“I remain optimistic that we will be successful,” she said.
