The Sounds That Pick Your Brain
Surrounded by the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean, overlooked by the decaying remains of abandoned naval buildings that once served Treasure Island’s naval base, thousands gathered to attend a festival where everyone had the best view on the “Great Lawn,” as it’s called.
Produced by Noise Pop and Another Plant Entertainment, the site for the first Treasure Island Music Festival was chosen because producers thought it would be interesting to revive Treasure Island into a new location for a festival of this magnitude. “There had been the question mark of how to deal with transportation,” said Noise Pop Events Director, Stacy Hornes, “The transportation was mostly put together by Another Plant, whom had done things like private corporate events there but nothing like the Treasure Island Music Festival. This was the largest event that has taken place there so far.”
The producers had to organize and build a stage from the bottom up but their first challenge was getting their expected eight to ten-thousand people per day on and off Treasure Island for the two-day event. Unless fans purchased a VIP Four-pack there was no parking on the island. Instead, fans were to board a shuttle at AT&T Park and be bused in and out during the hours of 11a.m. to 11p.m. on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th.
The festival reached producers expectancy and they were satisfied with the size overall. “We had eight-thousand paid tickets per day.” said Horne. “People seemed comfortable with the size of festival and there weren’t long lines with the food and at the port-o-potties.”
Taking the shuttles worked out smoother than initially thought by the producers and fans alike, who expected traffic on the island. “We weren’t going to drive there anyway, it would be too much” said Scott Miller who attended the festival on the 16th.
Not being able to drive didn’t seem to deter people from going, especially because the producers arranged environmentally friendly shuttle buses for the event.
As event volunteer and San Francisco State University Freshman, Brigid McNally said, “It was nice to know that you could just go to AT&T Park and take the shuttle because personally I don’t drive,” she said.
The buses were not the standard wheels you road to elementary school in, but rather zero-emission buses “and the fact that it is a green bus is awesome, they [the producers] said that 95% of their vehicles are hybrid for the event.”
First Treasure Island Music Festival Creates a New Tradition for San Francisco
By Contessa Abono and Nadine Caouette
Above: Overview of festival on Sun. night. Modest Mouse playing their set.
Photos Contessa Abono
Above: Live art entertainment such as the stilt walkers was seen throughout the day.
Below: As the day turned into night the live art continued.
It may have been strange to some that Treasure Island was the site picked to host a two-day eletronic/indie music festival of this size, due to limited parking on the island itself, yet by the end of the last night, it had become a mini-carnival complete with a Ferris wheel, churros and even dancing stilt-walker-clowns.
Festival goers got into the extra touches, like the live art, “I just come for the crazy people like the transvestites on stilts and the green people with masks, “ said Sofia Reyes, freshman at San Francisco State.
McNally, an Anthropology and English major at San Francisco State, said she thought this festival was totally different from the sea of other festivals San Francisco puts together. “We have lots of festivals in SF but nothing like this, it’s really unique. I’m sure more that 95% of these people have never been to Treasure Island before-I know I haven’t. I thought it was a vacant navel base, I didn’t know there was anything here.”
Marianne Thompson moderator for the community outreach website www.treasureislandonline.net said they had no negative situations to report for the monthly Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island Community Meeting on September 19. Thompson, who is apart of the San Francisco Island Community Association of Good Neighbors, said “We had zero incidents. I work directly with residents and I contacted key residents before the event happened and hardy heard anything.”
Thompson was pleased with the outcome of the festival and said that most residents of the island liked the idea, “I received one e-mail from a woman who said she could hear the festival on Sunday but that was it.”
Noise Pop and Another Plant have simultaneously created a new location for San Francisco Bay Area Festivals, gained clout as producers in the Bay and recharged peoples interest in the Treasure Island community. What is next for them is another year of planning to bring this festival into an annual status. “It was very exciting and they did a great job producing this,” said Thompson. “We are meeting with the producers next week to recap and set a date to plan next years event.”
The mixture of food, indie kids in hound’s-tooth prints, aviator sunglasses and smirk looks was topped off by ocean breezes and an array of local and well know acts in rock and roll. San Francisco has been well know for its visionary ideas and the Treasure Island Music Festival has just become the latest addition to this theme.
