A northeast Calgary community association is worried a huge summer music festival will bring unwanted noise and crowds to their neighbourhood this July.
The Mad Decent Block Party, a festival of electronic music, is scheduled for July 19 at Prairie Winds Park with up to 5,000 people expected to attend. The Calgary show of the adults only festival is scheduled to include performances by Major Lazer, Zeds Dead, Dillon Francis, Flosstradamus, Big Gigantic, Paul Devro and Smalltown DJs.
The show is being organized by Union Events, a group with a long track record of staging outdoor concerts in Calgary including X-Fest.
Residents of the nearby communities of Castleridge, Falconridge, and Martindale are worried the family oriented park won't be able to handle a festival the size of Mad Decent. Marc Langlois, with the Falconridge-Castleridge Community Association, says the community was not consulted when plans for the outdoor concert was approved.
"The biggest worry is the after effect," says Langlois. "What happens when the thing shuts down after eleven o'clock? If there's 4,000 people coming out of here where are they going to go?"
The city’s decision to approve the festival’s location was based on the success of previous Union Event concerts and the fact Prairie Winds has previously hosted large events including the 2012 Canada Day celebration which more than 8,000 people attended.
Beginning this week, concert organizers will be sending flyers indicating times, security and traffic plans to all of the houses in the area. The proposed setup for the concert would have the speakers facing west, away from the neighbouring communities.
Calgary and Toronto are the only Canadian stops for the 2013 Mad Decent Block Party which will also take place in eleven U.S. cities.
With files from Kevin Green
