What: Sunfest Country Music Festival featuring Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Chase Bryant, Dallas Smith, Neal McCoy, Autumn Hill and more
When: Thursday through Sunday
Where: Laketown Ranch Music and Recreation Park, 8811-2 Youbou Rd., Cowichan
Tickets: $75 (Thursday), $95 (Friday), $125 (Saturday), $115 (Sunday) or $260 (four-day general admission)
Note: Children 12 and under are free with paid parent
Information: sunfestconcerts.com
Country music fans on Vancouver Island have been settling in since Wednesday for a weekend of activity at the four-day Sunfest Country Music Festival, which has some thinking it will draw the biggest festival audience in Vancouver Island history.
Music got underway at 4 p.m. Thursday at Laketown Ranch Music and Recreation Park, a 172-acre site in Cowichan, near Youbou. But the biggest draw of the weekend arrives shortly before 10 p.m. on Saturday, when seven-time Grammy Award winner Carrie Underwood plays before an expected 16,000 fans.
The booking of the former American Idol winner — she of the 5.44 million Twitter followers — comes as her popularity is at an apex. Underwood’s current album, Storyteller, made the Oklahoma native the only artist to score six consecutive No. 1 albums on the Billboard country charts.
That will almost assuredly help Sunfest match or better the weekend attendance records set last year when a reported 46,500 attendees took in the festival at its former location, the Cowichan Exhibition Grounds near Duncan.
“It almost feels a little uncomfortable because we’ve never been this far ahead,” said Sunfest organizer Greg Adams. “It’s comfortably uncomfortable. Normally, we’d be at this stage on Thursday morning, but we were wrapping things up on Tuesday morning. So we feel pretty good.”
Adams and his team have spent the past six months prepping the private land for the full festival experience, a task that wasn’t always easy. The site was heavily treed when Adams took it over, which meant the construction of Sunfest’s main stage, one of three built for the festival, was cumbersome.
However, structural engineers hired by the festival signed off on the stage two weeks ago, according to Adams. It is now said to be the largest permanent stage in the province, one that Adams modelled after the popular Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington.
Laketown Ranch boasts 1,700 camping spots, 1,500 parking spots and a range of amenities, from flush toilets to showers. If people are going to live on site for the weekend, Adams wants his guests to be comfortable.
“It’s so much easier now. We used to have to make people happy using portable toilets.”
Cowichan Valley Regional District directors gave the festival the green light in January, but that hasn’t assuaged some residents, who have voiced concerns over the expected noise and traffic issues during the weekend. The festival is expected to have 10,000 fans on site today, and between 12,000 and 16,000 each day for the remainder of the weekend.
Advance planning only accounts for so much, however. Adams said he expects to be tweaking the site all weekend, making minor changes as the festival goes along.
“There’s only so much you can do until you’ve run the ship once. That’s where we’re at right now. We’re trying to project, but until we’ve done it, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen.”
Duncan-based Adams said he spent money on several fronts to help reduce the impact Sunfest has on the neighbouring areas, including $15,000 on a traffic control plan, given that half his audience travels from Victoria to attend the event.
Youbou Road, which leads to the site, is expected to be busy all weekend, which could complicate travel for area residents not attending the festival. Adams said he has tried to take all perspectives into account.
“We have the 80 km/h [speed limit on Youbou Road] down to 50 km/h for the weekend. I live up here and, if anything, it’s going to make that highway safer.”
Adams said he has met residents and heard their concerns. But with the support of the CVRD’s decision, he has the right to stage his festival on land he owns, especially since his plans meet the approval of local RCMP, fire and ambulance departments.
“There’s nothing you can do to make everyone happy — nothing. But we can’t be any more organized, or any more dialled-in for a first-time event in this location, than we are.
“This is my fourteenth time doing this festival, so I have a commitment to making sure it’s as seamless as possible.
“If there’s minor inconveniences, that’s just life. We’ve done all we can. Anything realistic and reasonable has been more than addressed by us.”
Today is the festival’s primary arrival day for campers and the Sunfest team has been busy communicating with ticketholders about advance planning. There is no easy way of getting thousands of people on site without delays, Adams said, so he has been preaching patience.
“We want people to realize that they are coming to a big event. We do everything as seamless as possible, and with as much thought as we can to make it comfortable, but there’s a mass of people at certain times. Be patient.”
Laketown Ranch was built with room to grow, Adams said. This weekend, he is expected to announce two major headliners for next year’s festival.
With its first year at the new site off the books, tickets to the 2017 edition are expected to sell quickly, beginning this weekend. Should the inaugural Laketown Ranch production go off without a hitch, Adams said there’s a possibility he will hit his target of 17,000 fans per day at this time next year.
“Because of the size of this venue, I don’t think we’ll sell it out the first year. But we’ve got the natural ability to sell tickets because it’s so large, which is nice.”
