Pemberton Festival: Friday’s A Wrap!

July 26th, 2008

Phew. We made it through the first day of the festival without any sunburns, mystery bruises or broken bones. What we do have, though, is nasal passages teeming with dirt and dust (when I blew my nose just now, what came out of it was BLACK), a solid coating of dust on our skin and moderate jetlag setting in. The adjustment to the time difference (3 hours) didn’t go as smoothly as planned.

We started our trek to Pemberton (which is about 30 km north of Whistler) just after noon on Friday, and with just a few kilometres left on the route, we came to a complete halt – bumper to bumper traffic that continued for the next three hours. It was stop ‘n go with no end in sight. I kept looking at the odometer thinking “we are SO close – it must just be around that next corner” as passengers in other cars got out and started to walk instead. At one point we even saw some guys barbecuing (pre-planned, of course) on the side of the road, selling hot dogs and hamburgers for a few dollars apiece to impatient and hungry festival-goers. Smart idea. Then there was the gaggle of hotties a few cars ahead that insisted on filing out of their truck each time traffic snarled (there were eight of them packed into a Ford F150) to flirt with the cuties in the next car over. It was comical to observe their courtship.

As we approached the site we caught a glimpse of the campsites – thousands of tightly packed tents with barely any breathing room and lots of identifying flags and tent accents to help people locate their sleeping spots at the end of each night. I can’t imagine you’d get even a moment of sleep on the campsite – the theme of the weekend was definitely partying.

When we finally arrived on site, the venue was already crawling with people. I hadn’t expected it to be so busy that early in the day, but the crowd at the main stage was thick for about fifty rows back to catch Metric’s set.

As you can see from the pics, the surrounding areas are stunning. Beautiful mountain peaks, millions of trees and open air. And beautiful people, too. It would appear that everyone in BC is gorgeous and fit – I’d say 75% of attendees were wearing bikinis or some sort of other revealing outfits, and that percentage only increased at the Bacardi B-Live tent, where I witnessed multiple makeout sessions and tons of spastic dancing.

Posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 1:53 am by Kat and is filed under Concerts & Events.