The inaugural Beach Road Weekend summer music festival was a safe and successful event, town officials and organizers said.
“I’ve planned many, many large-scale events, and I know what smooth is and what smooth isn’t, and this event was very smooth,” Tisbury police chief Mark Saloio said on Monday.
Mr. Saloio praised concertgoers for enjoying the event responsibly. He said three people were brought into protective custody over the course of the weekend for excessive drinking.
“That’s not uncommon on a typical weekend, let alone at a concert with this many people,” he said.
The full department worked the festival all weekend along with officers from the Dukes County sheriff’s department and officers from West Tisbury, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown.
Tisbury fire chief John Schilling said there were very few medical issues. He said two people were transported to the hospital on Friday but called the incidents minor.
“People definitely partied, but they were very manageable,” Mr. Schilling said.
Concert organizer Adam Epstein said over the course of the three days, there were 15,000 visits to the festival. He said he had received a lot of positive feedback from guests and musicians alike.
The festival took place in Veterans Memorial Park. It began Friday evening with a screening of Jaws and continued with live music on Saturday and Sunday. Lagoon Pond Road and Causeway Road were both closed to through traffic for much of the weekend.
Shuttles to the event picked up at multiple Island locations. Biking was encouraged with discounts and perks. There were also five remote parking lots. Chief Saloio said the festival did not seem to cause more traffic than usual in downtown Vineyard Haven.
“In the planning of the event, what we tried to emphasize was taking bulk of transportation away from Five Corners. We think that was successful,” Mr. Saloio said of the town’s notorious intersection.
So far, festival organizers have paid the town $98,000 in fees, according to town accountant Suzanne Kennedy. That includes site use fees, a damages deposit and estimated public safety costs. It also includes a $15,000 fee that was added when the sale of beer and wine was approved. Ms. Kennedy said the town will be finalizing possible additional costs or refunds in the coming weeks.
Mr. Epstein said he spent about $275,000 this year on advertising alone. He said he plans to organize another event next year pending permission from selectmen.
“I have the ability to do it again if the selectmen and the town will have me again,” he said. “We would love the opportunity to build on what we produced and to be able to make it better based on the understanding of the process we built this weekend.”
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