2009 Pemberton Festival Still Possible
The fate of the 2009 Pemberton Festival is still undetermined, even though organizers cleared the use of its previous site for another year.
B.C.’s Agricultural Land Commission confirmed earlier this week that it would allow Live Nation to use the farmland in Pemberton, B.C. as its festival site. But the promoter said the timing of the decision may be coming too late to plan such an event for 2009.
Live Nation’s Shane Bourbonnais, who’s also Pemberton’s head organizer, told The Globe And Mail newspaper that the chance of the three-day music event happening next year is “less than 50 per cent.”
“We are so late in the game in terms of sponsorships and suppliers,” he told The Vancouver Sun newspaper. “We’re obviously concerned about the timing.”
A decision is expected to be reached within the next few weeks.
About 40,000 people attended the inaugural three-day event this past July to see more than 120 artists, including Coldplay, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails and Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. While Bourbonnais saw the festival as an overall success, Pemberton wasn’t without traffic, garbage, recycling and security problems.
“We really want to improve on those things,” he told The Vancouver Sun. “It’s important that everybody who comes to the festival has a great experience.”
