Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival gets attendance green light

PALMER -- With a nod of approval from the Mat-Su Borough, Alaska's biggest campout is going on.

Monday, Mat-Su Borough Manager John Duffy and Ken Hudson, chief code compliance officer, agreed to a proposal put forward by organizers of the Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival that will keep festival gates open for all who wish to attend.

"I expect we'll have a pretty good attendance record this year," stage manager Cora Moses said when asked how she believed the attendance limit confusion would affect ticket sales. "I've told everybody to bring their brother-in-law and their Aunt Minnie."

Hudson, Tuesday, said event organizers had initially placed a request for a special event permit allowing more than 4,000 attendees, and offered title to the privately owned 140 acres of property the event is held on in exchange for the required $125,000 bond. They were told title to the land was not an acceptable bond, and reluctantly changed their permit to reflect 1,000 attendees and offered a $25,000 bond. But that decision didn't sit well with organizers.

"They appealed the decision of the borough regarding the bond to the borough manager," Hudson said. "The borough manager … decided the combination of a $25,000 cashier's check, in combination with the deed of trust for the land Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival owns, would be sufficient."

Duffy said certain aspects of the property made it easier to agree to the compromise. Having clear title and good access to the land will make it easier to fulfill the borough's role in the festival -- making sure the area is clean and there's no property damage after the event, for example.

"If we have to go in and clean up and all that, that means we have to sell the property," Duffy said of how the matter would be dealt with if the land title were the only bond offered. "Coupled with a cash bond, we were OK with it."

The festival's recent positive track record, he added, makes it easier to work out differences with event organizers.

"The festival is actually much better now than in years past," Duffy said, citing crowd-control and clean-up efforts as two big areas of improvement.

"I can't tell you how good that makes me feel," Moses said after hearing of Duffy's favorable opinion. Moses and her husband have been working with event organizers for the past few years, and said the changes are indicative of a broader shift.

"We've just felt that the festival should take more of a moral stand on things … and be more family-oriented," Moses said. As one sign of that change, a children's stage will be open this year at the festival. Most of the performers are the same as those who'll be appearing on the adult stage, but they'll be playing a different set of music, Moses said. She hopes in coming years to give that stage more autonomy, and secure some musicians primarily for the children.

In addition to adding elements for the children, Moses said event organizer Ernie Wheatley wants to add a more cultural flavor.

"We want to make it more of a multicultural event as well," Moses said. "Ernie has decided to bring it more to the international stage level … We've been really pleased -- we've worked really hard to make it an acceptable festival to all ages."

The festival kicked off Thursday and will run through Sunday. Hudson said his staff will still make periodic checks to see that everything is running as planned, but said the group is well able to accommodate more than 4,000 people. Adequate water, emergency response plans, proper sanitation and trash considerations and the number of bathrooms are among the things Hudson and his staff will be checking on.

"It's all adequate for the approximately 4,000 to 5,000 that will show up," Hudson said.