The organizers of a three-day music festival held last summer at Koocanusa are seeking permission to hold the festival again this Canada Day weekend.
Darryl Stanat and Shawn Lafleur, directors of FozzyFest, presented their plans to the Regional District of East Kootenay board of directors on Friday, March 7.
The pair gave a history of the festival, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, and talked about how they found the Big Springs campground on Koocanusa last year as a new site for the festival.
Because it expects to have 1,000 attendees, FozzyFest requires a special event license from the regional district to proceed, even though it will be held at the campground owned and operated by the Tobacco Plains Band.
The three-day outdoor camping festival will have three stages set up throughout the campground, two in the heart of the campsite and one on the beach. Music plays from noon until 6 a.m. each day, but the beach stage closes down at 11 p.m.
Stanat said that festival attendees are in their late 20s and early 30s, and as a non-profit they aim to leave the site better than they found it.
“Anyone who visits our festival finds it’s quite a positive experience,” he said.
“We’re not out to make money. This is all about building community, and building lasting friendships and memories.
“We actually leave the site cleaner than when we found it. We pride ourselves on that.”
He said that they will take steps to alleviate noise problems experienced last year, by closing down the beach stage at night, pointing speakers away from the lake, and using sound baffling techniques.
“We can’t guarantee there won’t be any complaints, but we definitely think we can limit the number of complaints. All those steps we can take will limit the issues,” said Stanat.
As well as noise, directors raised concerns with the festival organizers about parking for a large number of vehicles, first aid, searches for any banned items such as drugs, firearms and fireworks, and ways the festival can give back to the community.
Stanat and Lafleur registered each concern and said they would work to change their plans to alleviate the directors’ worries.
“With three months in advance, we can definitely keep communicating with everyone involved and make sure that we do mitigate all of the concerns that you have addressed,” said Stanat.
The board of directors will consider whether to approve the special event license at its next regular meeting on April 4.