Evolve Festival's first year in New Brunswick quiet, trouble-free
The Evolve festival's first year in New Brunswick was a quiet one, say organizers, with about 2,000 fans at the three-day event, compared to the usual 5,000 in past years.
Many festival-goers spent much of the day Monday packing up after enjoying the music until 4:20 a.m.
It was the 16th edition of the alternative music festival, which had a tumultuous planning period after it was forced to find a new location in just eight weeks.
Michael Pullen, head of security for the festival, said this year's festival was one of the calmest he's seen.
"I think a combination of what the RCMP did, the cool and sometimes cold, wet weather that we had over the weekend, as well as the new location, I think, kept most of the purposeful troublemakers away and I can say that this was a very safe, very successful Evolve," Pullen said.
He added that the few ambulances that had to be called were due to cases of hypothermia because of the inclement weather.
Pullen also said it was a relatively quiet year when it came to drug and alcohol-related medical emergencies.
Beersville residents reassured
Residents of Beersville, the small village near the new festival site, were concerned at first because of safety issues Evolve has faced in the past.
A 21-year-old man died after he collapsed at the concert site in 2015, however an autopsy said his death was due to natural causes.
But after seeing how smoothly the festival went this year, some of those people changed their minds.
Helen Jones' home is located about a kilometer from the site. She says despite the fact she and her husband could hear the music late into the night, they were not bothered by Evolve's presence in their community.
"It didn't bother us any. There's lots of traffic and we did hear the drums booming, but it was no problem," she said.
"We were concerned until we realised that it was well under control and there was lots of security," Jones added.
New site has room to grow
Amanda Gaudet, an Evolve veteran, attended the festival for the sixth time. She said though there were growing pains this year because of the last minute venue change, the site is an improvement over the previous site.
Evolve's former location in Antigonish, Nova Scotia was on a hill, while the New Brunswick site is on flat land. There were also showers this year, which is a first.
"It also feels like this land is more spread out, so it doesn't feel as clustered," Gaudet said.
She said the mud caused by the rain was the only real problem with Evolve`s new home.
And as organizers own the new site, they are planning to make changes as needed.
"You can see places where they can add boardwalks and they can grow from that," she said.
Evolve organizers say they are planning to hold next year's festival at the Beersville site, and may also use it to host other events.
