As far as parking issues are concerned, Big Music Fest went much smoother than Kitchener’s director of bylaw enforcement expected.
Shayne Turner says his officers issued approximately 240 tickets over the course of the weekend to festival attendees who ran afoul of the city’s three-hours-at-the-most-unless-you-have-a-permit on-street parking rule.
“A lot of people were using the parking passes that the city had issued,” Turner said.
Despite the relative success of the parking plan, Turner says the city is considering implementing new parking regulations for big events like Big Music Fest – which may include temporary increases to the $25 parking fine.
“That’s one of the things we need to look at,” he said.
Meanwhile, Monday marked a big departure from the tens of thousands of people who filled McLennan Park over the weekend.
A much smaller group was inside the park, working to clean up what was left behind from the weekend.
“It’s a lot of work, but that’s not unexpected,” said Jim Witmer, the city’s director of operations.
“It shouldn’t take us too long to get the park back the way we like to see it.”
While lots of cups and bottles littered the grounds Monday morning, the grass itself appeared to be in good shape, showing little wear from the weekend concert.
That’s in part because the field was covered in mulch – which Witmer calls the “silver lining” to the weekend, as the city was unsure what it would do with all the mulch it had accumulated from removal of trees damaged by winter ice storms and the emerald ash borer until the Big Music Fest plan was hatched.
The park is expected to be back to normal and reopened to the public by the end of the week.
