LAKETOWN SHAKEDOWN
Where: Laketown Ranch Music and Recreation Park, 8811-2 Youbou Rd., Lake Cowichan
When: Friday through Sunday
Tickets: laketownshakedown. frontgatetickets.com
Music remains a focal point for the Laketown Shakedown festival, which in recent years brought Snoop Dogg, Smash Mouth, Wu-Tang Clan, and Arkells to Lake Cowichan.
But music isn’t the only area which demands the attention of festival manager Mike Hann, who also oversees Sunfest, the other large-scale, multi-day festival held at Laketown Ranch Music and Recreation Park. More beverage options, on-site structures, food providers, and camping areas are among the additions to Laketown Shakedown this year.
“We want to have the best guest experience of any camping or destination event anywhere in Canada,” Hann said.
“These improvements we’re making, we’re thinking big picture and long term. We’re trying to enhance the experience each year so when people think about going to a camping festival, it’s similar to going to a really nice campground but with an incredible live entertainment venue.”
This year’s edition, which gets underway Friday, features sets from Shaggy, Portugal. The Man, Third Eye Blind, Aqua, K’Naan, Bif Naked and others on the main stage, and appearances from Rêve, Vinyl Ritchie, DJ Shub, Nicky Genesis, Father Funk and more on the party stage. More than 40 performances on three stages will take place through the three-day event.
Tickets have been selling briskly of late, with indications pointing to more than 5,000 people on site through the weekend, Hann said.
“Portugal. The Man are Grammy Award winners who just played Bonnaroo, one of the biggest festivals around. That they are coming to play in the Cowichan Valley is pretty damn cool.”
When campers arrive on site at the outset of a weekend-long music festival, there’s very little to complain about; no festival site will look better than it does at that moment. In that regard, few can compete with the secluded, sprawling Laketown Ranch, a 172-acre parcel situated minutes away from the shores of Lake Cowichan.
But when the hours turn into days, and thousands of revelers make use of the on-site services, no site is immune to the realities of festival life. And the breaking point is always — and without fail — a singular entity: Toilets.
It’s not a sexy topic of conversation, but it’s a vital one, Hann said. So in an effort to diminish this area of concern, Laketown Shakedown organizers have taken control their fate and built thrones of their own. Lots of them.
“Nobody is going to be in a traditional Porta Potty anymore,” Hann said. “We have wood buildings [housing toilets] all over the site now. The days of plastic Porta Potties on the Laketown site are done.”
There are now a remarkable 72 purpose-built toilets on site, including many that are plumbed (several showers are plumbed as well.) Hann and his fellow organizers have also added a new shaded area (named The Forest) and section known as The Lookout Lounge, which resembles the luxury boxes in hockey arenas in terms of amenities.
Those wanting an elite VIP experience can certainly have it at Laketown Shakedown, but that isn’t Hann’s primary area of attention.
“We have accessible pricing, so fans who want to go for one night only, to see someone like Shaggy or Aqua, you don’t have to pay top dollar to be at the front of the stage. We think we are priced extremely well, given the talent you are getting. If anyone were to look around at what they are getting in terms of bang for their buck, you are getting really good value. That’s important to us.”
That proved more difficult than ever to achieve this year, due to across-the-board inflation on his end, Hann said. On average, costs have risen 30 per cent, and Laketown Shakedown isn’t immune to the increases. But the festival did everything it could to eat costs on their end, Hann said.
One key advantage for Laketown Shakedown, which by expanding its inventory — from tents to toilets — no long carries certain costs, is that the site is private property and not one that incurs mountains of annual fees.
“Don’t get me wrong, it super expensive for us,” Hann said. “But we have positioned ourselves, with some foresight, to not be reliant on rental fencing, rental tents, and rental generators. We can pass that value back to the guests. At the end of the day, that’s what needs to happen.”
