Delta council has given an enthusiastic thumbs-up to bringing back the Barnside Harvest Festival.
Council endorsed a staff recommendation for the city to enter into a licence and fee-for-service agreement with Barnside Brewing Co. to use Paterson Park as a venue for the 2024 festival. It will take place from Sept. 13 to 15.
The maximum festival site capacity this year is to be 17,500 persons, subject to Barnside receiving approval from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, which owns part of the park, and satisfying other applicable regulatory requirements and conditions.
Barnside launched the first music festival at the park in September 2023, drawing more than 23,400 attendees over three days.
A Delta staff report notes that 68 per cent of the attendees were Delta residents, 25 per cent were from across Metro Vancouver, while seven per cent came from across the province.
“By all accounts, the 2023 Festival was wholeheartedly embraced by Deltans and considered a resounding success story for the community. The Festival drew very few complaints from the public and City staff had few concerns related to security or transportation/parking,” the report notes
The live music festival will run across two stages over the three days, featuring local and regional folk, roots and country recording artists throughout the day, and national headliners on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
Among other things, the festival will also feature licensed beverage service, provided exclusively by Barnside and will include beer and beer-alternatives, as well as non-alcoholic drinks, an artisan vendor market focused on celebrating the fall harvest, and food trucks.
The event organizers forecast attendance for the 2024 festival at between 10,000 and 15,000 attendees per day. Organizers requested an increase in the maximum festival site capacity to 17,500, including attendees, festival staff and vendors.
Supported by the city, the capacity increase is a 40 per cent increase from 2023 when the site capacity was 12,500.
Delta Fire and Emergency Services and Delta Police reviewed the site plan and determined that the requested site capacity is the maximum occupancy allowable.
Organizers will be announcing the full line-up on April 2, and ticket sales will launch on April 5.
