ARICHAT: Council has decided to approve an exemption under the municipal noise bylaw for an upcoming music festival.
During the regular monthly meeting on May 24 in Arichat, Warden Amanda Mombourquette told council about the Zenergy Electronic Dance Music Festival that is scheduled to take place at Inspiration Point Lodge in West Bay from June 17 to 19.
Mombourquette said the company in charge of the event is Epic Trip Productions.
“It’s a brand new event,” Mombourquette told council. “I also wanted to provide clarity because there was some question around the facility previously operating many, many years ago as a hunting lodge and it’s not that anymore, it’s more of a glamping kind of experience.”
After Epic Trip owner Jeremy Mclaughlin contacted the Eastern District Planning Commission, he was informed of the need for an exemption, given the size of the event, the warden said.
“He’s got a long history of event production in the region and beyond,” she said. “When he found out that there would be no specific permits that he would need to get, he understood that to be no municipal permit needed.”
Pointing to the presence of Event Producer Terry MacEachern at the meeting, Mombourquette shared their preparations with council.
“They’ve engaged with both fire services and ambulance; they’ve been notified. They plan to have medics on site and have a harm reduction area; so a medical tent with people experienced in treatment if anything of that kind comes up,” she noted. “They have an emergency evacuation plan where police, fire, and ambulance would be able to enter the property unobstructed, have a turn-around area, and exit through another driveway. There are 15 fire extinguishers and running water at the site, in terms of fire prevention. Police have agreed to set up a checkpoint to ensure that there’s no driving under the influence for this kind of thing. They’ve hired event security; 15 people and an additional compliment of, I think, it was three off-duty police and eight off-duty security guards that will supplement that presence.”
The warden said the site lay-out plan is available at: https://zenergy.ticketleap.com/zenergy/details, and insurance is in place. She said there is a no glass policy for the festival site, and any cans or recyclables will be picked up with proceeds going to local food banks.
“They’ve indicated that there’s ample parking on site, plus additional land that is being cleared because the owners of the lodge would like to expand to host others events there in the future,” said Mombourquette. “They’ve dealt with any sewage requirements by having Porta-Potties planned to be on site. There will be some food on site, but not sold, and there will be no alcohol sales on site at all. Admissions will include checking IDs at the gate because they are requiring you to be 19 or over to attend. Both female and male body guards to check purses and persons for any kind of contraband type of thing. And they do plan to cordon off the area to prevent any non-ticket attendees.”
Because a point of contact for the event is needed, Mclaughlin told the warden he will advertise his contact information.
“He has hired sound engineers to deal with the sound, and to be able to control it. They are setting up speakers in a format to minimize impact on neighbours,” noted Mombourquette.
With a cap on ticket sales at 500, the warden said they are expecting 320 people, including staff and artists.
“That’s an approximate number because ticket sales are still open,” Mombourquette said. “Final numbers are going to be important for us to know.”
Organizers offered councillors the chance to take a tour of the site, the warden said.
Specifically regarding the noise bylaw, Mombourquette said Section 4 states that no person shall engage in any activity between 12 and 7 a.m. which “intends to disturb the peace and the tranquility of a neighbourhood.”
The warden said Section 8 allows for an exemption to the bylaw to be considered by council.
“If we do give an exemption, we need to consider things like the social or commercial benefit of the proposed activity, the views of any residents which may be expressed, the proposed hours of operation of the noise-making activity, the proposed duration of the subject of activity, and the level of noise anticipated to be generated,” she explained. “In terms of the economic benefit, social benefit, we are a community of festivals and it potentially will have a tourism impact in a positive way.”
Mombourquette said they have received a letter from someone opposing the event.
“I do know that we’ve also received a piece of anonymous correspondence that outlines concerns from someone who has stated that they’re a property owner in that region,” she stated. “The correspondence, I think, outlined a lot of the concerns that frankly were questions that I was asking Jeremy about.”
Deputy Warden Melanie Sampson said noise concerns were not raised in the correspondence.
“There was a lot of things that were brought up by our anonymous resident, and I had similar concerns but the reality is they’ve dealt with all of those concerns, and none of those have anything to do with the noise bylaw,” she said. “We’re asked to deal with the bylaw exception. In my opinion, we make bylaw exceptions, I’m sure, for other events throughout the county and this one should not be any different.”
District 5 Councillor Brent Sampson agreed.
“I was kind of the same mind that especially considering the amount of work they’ve done ahead of time to reach out to police, and EDPC, and so on. I think it’s in our best interests to at least consider it,” he said. “Especially because it’s the first time, I think if it were something that missed the deadline, let’s say next year, I wouldn’t feel the same way about it. I didn’t get any sense that it was missed other than the fact that they didn’t realize it was there.”
Before voting on the motion, the District 5 Councillor asked to hear from MacEachern, who told council he has been managing music festivals for the past 22 years, and this year safety is their main priority.
“What we want to do is have a transparent gathering of people. We say 300, if we hit 250 we’re doing really good; it’s a first year festival,” he said.
If they do get complaints, MacEachern said they will work with the RCMP and volunteer fire departments.
“As far as the noise goes, reverberation is the big thing. A lot of people have festivals, they want the biggest sound systems, they want it up on racks, we’re doing the opposite. We’re getting a good sound system, we’re building racks for it but we’ll slant it down towards the ground on a 30 per cent angle, away from the neighbours, in which case it’s pointed toward the mountain, the speakers are going to be pointed towards the ground because when you got people on the dance floor and you got mud and dirt, it doesn’t reflect as much,” he explained. “It’s loud on the dance floor but when you’re down camping 100 yards away, you can’t hear it. In which case, the neighbours 300, 500 yards, a kilometre down the road, they shouldn’t be able to hear it.”
In response to a question from the District 5 Councillor, MacEachern said Friday and Saturday nights will run late.
“Sunday night is going to be calmed down. People are out there for the weekend,” he replied. “Monday is a work day, people have to rest and they’re on the road for Monday so it’s not going to be an all-night event on Sunday.”
Because of the amount of preparation already done, District 1 Councillor Shawn Samson supports the exemption.
“I’m sure that not all festivals end at 12:01 a.m. There’s a lot of festivals in this county that go on well into the night,” he stated. “This is a great opportunity, I think, and they’ve done a lot of their homework to take the steps to make sure this runs smoothly. I have no problems with this.”
The Deputy Warden proposed a motion that the application be accepted.
“The exception for the exemption application because it’s not within the right amount of days, and I’d like to get a little bit of reasoning on that, simply because they did do a lot of checking with many of our partners that they felt would have informed them of the noise bylaw exemption request requirement,” she noted.
Council agreed to a suggestion from District 2 Councillor Michael Diggdon to extend the exemption to 3 a.m. on June 18 and 19.