Last weekend’s Ever After music festival saw an increase in the number of incidents compared to last year’s event.
Ambulance transports, hospitalizations and noise complaints were all up.
This year’s festival also added an extra night and an increase in attendance that could be responsible for the increase.
Forty people were treated by paramedics over the festival’s four nights, 34 of those were transported to hospital.
A number of people were also hospitalized but did not use an ambulance to get to the hospital.
Grand River Hospital saw 48 hospitalizations, St. Mary’s 13.
All cases were considered serious, two were in critical condition.
The City of Kitchener received 36 noise complaints related to the festival.
Around half of those complaints came on Thursday during sound check while testing the limits of the sound system.
City bylaw says the festival did not break the 55 decibel limit at any point, also the weather may have played a factor in how the sound travelled.
“We could tell by where the complaints were coming in from which direction the wind was blowing that night, so it really does play a huge role,” said Gloria MaNeil, director of bylaw enforcement, City of Kitchener.
Waterloo Region Police have not yet released official numbers from the weekend.
With reporting by Max Wark.
