PLAIN FOLK by Les Pearson That's right! Count 'em. Over the four days of this year's Winnipeg Folk Festival, paid attendance topped 47,500. That, my friends, is a pile of people to cram into Bird's Hill Park just north of Winnipeg. Like Edmonton and Calgary, the Winnipeg mega-festival may be drowning in its own excess. For Thursday's opening evening, rain and the workweek kept attendance figures low even though such notables as Taj Mahal performed. Friday's workshops were well attended, as was the evening show that featured the amazing Ibrahim Ferrer of "Buena Vista Social Club" fame. But Saturday and Sunday's sunshine and soaring temperatures turned workshops and the main stage arena into anthills of humanity. The music was all good. But the crowds were overwhelming! Afternoon line-ups for lemonade stretched up to 50 customers in length. (Yes, I counted.) Food lines-ups were not much shorter. Thankfully, there was a city of portapotties. Here are a few of the crowd complications. Rains fell during each of the festival nights. The traditional practice of permitting the first 300 patrons to enter the grounds after 8:00 a.m. to place tarps at the main stage had to be altered. Tarps would have irreparably damaged the wet grass. Instead, the early-rising 300 were issued special passes and told that they would be given first dibs at 5:30 p.m. This allowed fresh air and sunshine to dry the turf through the day. Here's the complication. By tarp time, the full audience waited in the wings to seize any patch left unclaimed by the 300. When the rope barriers fell, it was the Oklahoma land grab! In drier times, the crowd drifts in over the morning. Tarping is leisurely, even genteel. No one dies. This year, the potential was there. Those site flags, unique to the Winnipeg Festival, this year seemed a little more tribal and menacing. Here's another complication. Smokers in the main stage arena are asked to smoke only at the sides of the seating area. With Saturday and Sunday's throngs, even the sidelines were crowded. Many smokers-maybe some fearing undercover busts-indulged where they were. Moving anywhere from the middle seating area was just too arduous. Finally, festival organizers made an earnest, reasonable, plea for after-concert party people to stay away from Pope's Hill. The hill, named following Pope John Paul II's mass during his visit to the site, is ecologically-if not spiritually-sensitive. An estimated crowd of 700 ignored the prohibition. Festival organizers, in cooperation with provincial park authorities and the RCMP, have designated "noisy" camping areas in the park and "quiet" areas for those who cherish a few hours of sleep during the weekend. All who want to party hardy have the "noisy" campground. But in 2004, there were so many! This violation of the Festival's park lease threatens future
festivals at the serene and expansive site. While huge crowds cough up the cash
for high-priced performers, they have other attendant hairballs. |