Article content continued

“The B.B. King thing made us rethink things,” said Monahan. “The weird thing was it was not the best attended night. It was just where people were at that time. A lot of people were there that night just to see him,” including Monahan himself.

Broadening the festival’s outer perimeter means the parking lot under the museum will no longer be available to patrons after the day begins at Bluesfest.

The new gate will block that access. And anyone who does park underground will have to wait until the night is over before leaving.

Also, Monahan says, patrons who buy a day pass will not have in-and-out privileges.

Most people these days are buying multi-day passes. A massive festival such as Bluesfest, with hundreds of shows on the schedule, is always tinkering to improve the experience for patrons, Monahan says.

And when you get up to 30,000 people a day in a confined area, the audience experience really is job No. 1. The festival is scheduled to try to ensure that favourable experience, and organizers must try to predict where people will go from one stage to another.

“And you have to be ready to change. For example, last year we moved Wu-Tang Clan to the main stage. Originally they were going to be on the Claridge stage. But I was getting a sense that that concert was going to be huge, so we had to do it. You have to make a call.”

Sometimes technology will help solve a problem, such as sound bleed from one stage to another.

Speakers today are able to concentrate sound in a specific area. That is not perfect and the bass beat will travel, Monahan says, but it is much better than it used to be.

In fact, the speakers are so focused that the festival also has another set of speakers that are on “delay towers” located behind the sound tent.

These are used to improve the clarity of sound coming from the main stage when a large crowd is in attendance.