Rifflandia Music Festival

Criminal charges should be a slam dunk - while it's occasionally hard to prove malice, it's generally easy to demonstrate negligence. The public address system had no need to be that loud to provide excellent sound.

Went to Rifflandia for the first time ever, last night.  My partner got us set up with media passes for the whole thing.  It really seems to be the place to be.   We just rotated between Copper Owl,  Phillips Backyard and Anian.   Security at Back Yard was crazy, and the music there (rap) was not to my liking.

Interesting that organizers say 7,000-10,000 will take in the festival.

But consider that Walking with Dinosaurs will likely take in 20,000+ people next weekend.  I'm guessing they will not sell as much beer though.

Rifflandia:  7,000-10,000 fans, 4 days, 185+ bands, 15 venues.

WwD:  20,000+ fans, 4 days, some dinosaurs, 1 venue.

Is this the first time they did the huge number of venues?  I always thought it was just an outdoor thing at royal athletic park.  I usually don't mind the noise, just wish the music was better.

They came by our office in the "design district" warning of pending loud noise and happy people milling about. I don't think they were at Phillips' Back Yard last year.

More venues get added every year. You can see the previous year websites on the rifflandia site as well to get a feel for the change over the years. I've been going for years now and think it's a great event and well put together.

I believe Rifflandia started out booking acts into a few of the clubs in town.  I remember when it expanded into RAP it was a big deal, and sort of a marker of it having come into its own as THE music festival in Victoria.  This year, it's really started expanding into unusual and overlooked spaces, which is great. 

Lots of younger people from the mainland are milling about downtown today. This is no doubt a fairly substantial draw for the city and I imagine quite a few people from Washington make their way up here as well.

Went again tonight for Serana Ryder, Dragonette and Lola Parks.

This thing really is done well.

This Philips beer contraption is pretty darned cool. 

They said they were going to use a "special sound system that contained the sound to the crowd" or something this year.  It was pretty clear tonight down by the Jubilee. 

And yes, that's a pretty neat contraption! 

They said they were going to use a "special sound system that contained the sound to the crowd" or something this year...

Epic fail. 

I heard on the radio this morning that VicPD got far fewer noise complaints this year than previous years.