Pubdate: Sun, 10 Aug 2014
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Copyright: 2014 Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact: http://www.edmontonsun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.edmontonsun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135
Author: Kevin Maimann
Page: 7

PEACE & HARMONY ON THE HILL

Edmonton Folk Music Festival's Relaxed Atmosphere Keeps Troublemakers at Bay

While several summer music festivals are taking heat for attendees 
overdosing on drugs, the Edmonton Folk Music Festival is busy dealing 
with scrapes, bruises and the occasional lost child.

Ben Toane, a doctor who has volunteered at the First Aid tent every 
year since the Folk Fest started in 1980, said the festival of 25,000 
people has always been a calm affair.

"I think it has to do with the fact that it's fenced. It keeps the 
riffraff out. You come in and it feels like a safe place. It's 
festive, it's creative, it's very enjoyable," he said.

'Little village'

"It's a pretty harmonious, co-operative little village."

While the festival has paramedics on site, Toane said he's never 
encountered a series health problem.

"Most of it is pretty simple stuff - scrapes, cuts, insect bites, and 
people needing Aspirins and Band-Aids and so on and so forth," he said.

The festival is geared toward an older crowd than something like 
Penticton's Boonstock or Calgary's Chasing Summer, which likely 
contributes to the mellow atmosphere, but that's not to say people 
don't get a little inebriated.

Toane said he occasionally deals with people on drugs, though they 
never seem to give him too much trouble.

"At the end of the day, as the site cleans out, we usually have a few 
cases of chemically induced hypersomnia, shall we say," he said. So 
it's a challenge to find some way to get these very relaxed people off site."

Security liaison Mike Dobberthien said he doesn't remember a single 
incident in his 28 years at the festival when he's had to get police involved.

The busiest nights are the rainy ones, when people receive minor 
injuries from slipping on the grass.

He said the biggest issue Folk Fest security deals with on a daily 
basis is lost children - and lost parents.

Eyes all over

"We've got 2,200 volunteers here. If somebody's missing and we've got 
a description, we've got 2,200 people looking for him. We will find 
him," he said. "And they can't get out of the fence, because the gate 
people are watching too."

Rowdies are occasionally an issue - beer is served on site, after all 
- - but he said security does its best to show troublemakers the exit 
in a polite fashion.

"If we do have to evict people, we can't just throw them out, because 
they're usually drunk," he said. "We have to put them in a cab, and 
we pay for a cab to send them home."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom