FredRock’s Shakedown Cruise

Rain, diminished attendance, NIMBYS – the initial FredRock festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick, had its share of stumbling blocks but everything seems to be coming up roses.

FredRock, held by several young promoters, featured the Black Crowes and Live and was expected to draw about 15,000 people. Unfortunately, rain was a factor in the estimated 5,000 attendance. And, as many promoters find out the hard way, any time there’s an outdoor event, someone will complain to the press.

“It was extremely noisy, it was extremely bothersome,” a nearby resident told CBC Radio. The event registered eight complaints and seven inquiries with police. There was also a complaint to the CBC that the event ran past the 11 p.m. noise curfew.

But it was supposed to.

“There’s just no way to make them happy,” organizer Mike Babineau told Pollstar. “They knew almost six months in advance when we got permission from the city to use the grounds for a festival back in December. We stated we’d be over by 11:30 – got the extension of the noise bylaw, went through all the proper channels, and then we finished at the proper time with the Crowes finishing at 11:30. We finished an hour and a quarter early on Sunday.”
Babineau noted there has been a lot of media attention for a “small group of individuals” who complained about the show.

Fredericton already hosts the Harvard Jazz & Blues festival and CountryFest, and Mayor Brad Woodside is supportive of events like FredRock.

“It brings people into our community. It helps our restaurants. It helps our hotels and it’s a different genre of music,” Woodside told the Daily Gleaner. “This community deserves a vibrancy. I would shudder to think what this community would be like if all of a sudden we said we’re not going to have any music.”

Woodside told the paper there will be a post-mortem while city officials and the promoters get together and assess what went right and what went wrong.

“I also want to take this opportunity to commend the young people who came into this council chamber and said that they were going to do what they actually did,” Woodside said. “They did shut down at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday. … The weather was terrible in terms of the rain accumulations, particularly on Saturday, and it’s unfortunate that these young entrepreneurs will be lucky to break even.”