We Are Not So Many
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Can't see the 'ShareThis' icon? Reload your page view by pressing Shift and clicking Refresh at the same time.While 50,000 people spent Sunday afternoon strolling through downtown Saskatoon celebrating the granddaddies of carbon-producers, the custom automobile, the We Are Many festival was limping to it's taxpayer funded conclusion on the other side of the river.
This picture was taken at 1:45pm on Sunday August 24th, from beside the mainstage -
Snapped at the same time, this was the main stage...
How are you feeling about how your tax dollars were spent?
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I can think of many other
I can think of many other things that my tax money could go to. Like lowering my property taxes or even my own personal taxes.
Where are those 9,000 people who attended the WAM?
I was going to blog about the same thing after reading the headline on Newstalk's homepage. No need to now.
The producers of the WAM festival are claiming an attendance of 9,000 but I haven't seen any evidence of that at all. Photos in the StarPhoenix of presentations inside the tents show fewer than ten attendees. Your photos from outside the tent are empty as well. What a complete waste.
I might have taken my kids there for entertainment purposes (ie. look what the silly econuts believe) were scuttled by the "no parking for non-carpooling vehicles" rule. So, instead, we drove downtown and went shopping. Downtown was very busy yesterday.
Are you people so dense that
Are you people so dense that you reject anything "ecofriendly"? If you're so concerned that this festival dipped into your I-need-more-material-goods-fund then perhaps you should have attended in order to get your money's worth. Hey, maybe some of the exhibits may have helped loosen that fool's grip on your brain and maybe, just maybe you could have educated yourself for once.
The free concert(the
The free concert(the weakerthans)obviously saved them from complete embarassment. I'm sure that if I offered a free concert from a pretty popular band, I would draw the same numbers. It would've been comforting to know that thier message and not the free concert drew the 9000 attendance.
wammy
Well, sure, but if you want to visit an event with plenty of vacant toilets and no lineups, there you go...
Maybe in future they'll call
Maybe in future they'll call it the "We aren't all that many" festival, representing only the extreme outer fringes of the lunatic fringe.
I do not have an issue with
I do not have an issue with the message the organizers of WAM were distributing, although I disagree with some of it. It is their right as citizens of this great country to express these positions. I truly object to tax payer funds being directed to these projects, and that the organizers were permitted by council to operate outside the original agreement by both parties. Admission, according to council, can now be coin collection. Councillor Hill even suggested that he was willing to pre-pay admissions for 40000 people by cutting a personal cheque for $400 (1 cent each, although he would have vastly overpaid). While Hill's offer may have been perceived as a great gesture by the WAM organizers, that simple offer makes a mockery of the cities policy in the funding arrangements that were agreed to by both parties.
Much of the talk on the grounds yesterday afternoon was when WAM was going to run next year (I took photo's also, of an empty beer garden too!). No admission charged (a $10 suggested donation), and talk of a multi year event, two areas that conflict with what this group agreed to when WAM sucured city financial support.
What is stopping other long time community organizations that run festivals/events in our city for asking for the same level of support from the city? On-going events and a small admission fee/coin collection now qualify under our cities policy: council has approved this change in policy by supporting the change for WAM.
We are not many festival
I have problems enviromental festivals,but not with my tax money,my tax money is for roads, schools, health care, parks, Police and fire services, everyother festival is run on corp sponsers and dontains and ticket sales,if its on next year and our city council gives our money again i will remember it next election time, when my vehicle hits a pot hole on the road that hasnt been fixed on the way to vote.
How come noone wonders about
How come noone wonders about the nature these people.
Sure the event might raise some awareness and get other people to act.
But one has to wonder about the people pushing the cause. Some of them might be able to walk to the downtown or take the bus. But even carpooling to the event let alone driving to from another town creates the very same carbon footprint they are supposedly raising awareness against. (Did all the bands walk down with their equipment? were they all from within a block radius?)
Think of the millions of dollars that went into concerts like live 8. And the millions more that went into getting people there. Even if the bands and all the others donated their time... Think about how much more money could have been donated if people had just sent the money they were going to spend on the ticket and transportation.....
Every time I see an even like this I think back to when I was about 8. My grandmother donated a $10 in my name to a charity as a part of my birthday gift. Today... 20 Years later... I still get requests for money from that charity along with some of their paraphernalia... It far outweighs the original donation that I didn't even make. So if a charity is willing to spend that much money to get me to donate a pittance more; Are they really doing what is best for their cause? OR just keeping telemarketers in jobs?
Likewise with any event like "we are many". Are they really benefiting the planet? Or are they just increasing their own carbon footprint and having fun while telling me I have to do less? At what point does actually following the cause exceed the need for "collections" and "awareness"???
I wonder about those
I wonder about those organisations as well - particularly the ones who show commercials during prime-time hours (expensive?). However, this festival was organised entirely by volunteers. The main organisers who you're talking about were people who were either working on the festival after working their regular jobs OR students who are living on next to nothing and who believe in the cause so were willing to forfeit summer job income to make the event happen. They believed in their community and, I'm told, it was not uncommon for them to work at least 16 hours a day on preparations. Any personal benefit gained from putting that kind of work into organising something like this was simply the knowledge that they're enabling the community to make better collective decisions.
Of course input vs. output is always a question, however this event was organised in such a way to reduce impact as much as possible and offer as much information for positive change as possible. Asking people to carpool to the event was not so that people could carpool ONCE, but so that they would begin to think about how possible it is to carpoo, bike, walk, or take public transit ALL THE TIME. This festival was about making lasting changes and was designed to help people follow through with them.
I highly doubt the organisers were out simply to have a big party.
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