17th Annual Shambhala Music Festival Wraps Most Successful Event Ever
Success has many measures, but for the organizers of the Shambhala Music Festival (SMF)
it really comes down to two, festival-goer experience and safety. With a
record, sold out crowd of 11,000 people highlighted by 300 acts on six
uniquely themed stages, the feedback rolling in from guests has been
overwhelmingly positive.
“I think our staff did
an incredible job this year,” says Jimmy Bundschuh, SMF’s founding
owner. “From the gate to human resources through to our stage directors,
everyone put an incredible amount of passion and energy into the
festival, and it showed. It’s not everyday you get Bassnectar texting
you saying it was the best Shambhala ever.”
Highlighted by what many
in the EDM community are calling the best line-up of the summer,
featuring international acts like Bassnectar, Andy C, What So Not,
Lucent Dossier, Griz, Z Trip, A Tribe Called Red, Skream and many others
-- the only problem with the festival was trying to take it all in.
Stage production was
also at an all time high, with cutting edge audio/visual, live
performance, sound and set design. The Grove stage—new for 2014—was
packed the entire festival, while mainstay stages like The Village,
Pagoda, Fractal Forest, Amphitheatre and Living Room each had their own
vibrant energy and exquisite artistic sensibilities.
“After 17 years it’s
amazing that Shambhala still gets better every year,” explains Jeremy
Bridge, stage director at The Village. “It’s a feat that is very
difficult to achieve since the bar is already so high. This is thanks to
all of the incredible people who pour their love into the show so
relentlessly, something money can't buy. When I look around The Village
it’s breathtaking to see how it has evolved to be so much more than just
a stage. It’s now a completely immersive environment, something that
cannot be packaged or copied, a place truly unique in the world.”
On the safety side of
the equation, the festival experienced a very low number of incidents.
There were only seven transports of guests to hospital, with no
life-threatening injuries.
While SMF’s security and
first aid staff are leaders in the festival world, organizers attribute
these low numbers to a increasingly intelligent crowd. “I think people
have responded well to recent incidents at other festivals,” says
Bundschuh. “Our crowd did an amazing job of taking care of each other
and themselves. These are some of the lowest incidents we’ve ever seen
when it comes to public safety.”
Shambhala
Music Festival is proud to announce their dates for 2015: August 6-10,
2015, Salmo River Ranch, BC. Tickets go on sale November 1st. To
everyone who participated in the festival—as a guest, volunteer, artist
or staff, from all of us at the festival, we’d like to extend our
heartfelt thanks and gratitude. It’s an honour to share these magical
days with you all. Shambhalove!
