Festival Fans Help To Make A Better Festival

More than 100 Bluesfest fans brainstormed ways to make Ottawa’s premier summer music festival safer and more crowd friendly at a public meeting Tuesday.

The two-hour meeting at Tom Brown Arena was organized by the RBC Bluesfest board of directors after an unusual volume of feedback following the 2017 festival.

Bluesfest has attracted an increasingly youthful crowd in recent years with artists such as Skrillex, Migos and 50 Cent, but those younger audiences have also raised issues about underaged drinking, drug use, public urination and crowd safety. They’ve added to perennial Bluesfest concerns such as weather, traffic, finances, lawn chairs and beer prices.

It was a mostly older crowd that attended Tuesday’s meeting, with the vast majority expressing a desire for better security and crowd control. Offered one participant: “Certain types of music attract a certain type of atmosphere that requires more security.”

In an interview, Bluesfest executive director Mark Monahan acknowledged that security is a pressing issue. “I think, obviously, that for the folks who came here tonight, security is a top of mind thing,” he said. “It’s something we take very seriously.”

But Monahan said Bluesfest does not want to run “a police-state type of festival,” and has to find creative ways to improve the situation. “Often the most comfortable festivals are not those with the biggest security presence,” he said.  “The question is, what do you do to create an atmosphere where everybody feels comfortable?”

Mohahan put that question to the public meeting Tuesday — the first such meeting in the 24-year history of Bluesfest.

Audience members offered a broad assortment of ideas. Some called for a larger police presence; another suggested the festival be patrolled by drones. Others wanted more entrances, a strict code-of-conduct, better lighting, panic buttons and crowd markers to make it easier for security to respond to problems.

“We need more diversity every night so you don’t have one rap night or one country night that causes trouble: If it’s thinned out, it might not be such an issue,” one man suggested.

The July 13 appearance of the Atlanta rappers Migos brought security issues into sharp focus last year. The show was delayed for half an hour as festivalgoers went through long security lineups. Crowds poured in at the last minute and a few groups — mostly made up of young men — pushed their way toward the stage.

Security guards pulled several young girls from the crush, and a few fans were struck by thrown bottles and cans. Guards also had to deal with an unusual number of gatecrashers. Paramedics assessed about 200 people for injuries and intoxication that night, and 10 were sent to hospital.

At the end of Tuesday night’s public meeting, Monahan told the crowd that he had heard their concerns about security. “We’re trying to come up with realistic ways to make the event safe and enjoyable for all who go: yourselves and others,” he said.

Monahan said the full Bluesfest lineup should be announced in February by which time some decisions will be made about new security measures. He said he expects those measures to be in place at this summer’s festival.