Messy festival doesn’t belong on the beach

I’m not a prude, nor a hypocrite. I am a proud, young, North Coast resident with a thought process that I believe mirrors many other like-minded residents of our coastal enclave.
This weekend I saw a Facebook post on a region-specific group from a gentleman simply asking when . . . ‘that racket at Salt Rock is going to finish?’, obviously alluding to the Mr Price Pro Music festival. This poor old sod clearly wasn’t appreciative of the noise late into the night over the respective Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the event. I imagined myself saying to him, “Come on dude, it’s only three days that you have to turn your TV volume up a few notches – stop being such a prude.”
But all that changed when I strolled onto the eerily empty Salt Rock beach on Friday and Saturday morning for an early surf. To be fair, the clean-up process had long since started by a team of cleaners and there were dozens of full bags of rubbish all ready to be disposed of. But no amount of thorough cleaning would ever have been able to sieve the hundreds of cigarette butts I saw engrained in the sand. Nor was any cleaner wading into the shore-break to sift out the dozens of floating beer cans, cigarette packets and condom packets I had to dodge on my paddle out. Neither too, were any self-respecting cleaners scrubbing the stench of urine and vomit out the showers or along the dune foliage that lined the beach.
I am a realist. These types of events are never completely impact-free. I know, I’ve previously been on the organising side of the proverbial fence for a well-known surf and music event in the Eastern Cape and there’s no fail safe. It was evident that a clean-up system was in place for this year’s festival. And it was obviously apparent that the organisers had put much thought into the layout of the event, and the subsequent beach permits, municipal notices, and noise level curfews etc.
So my gripe is not in how or why the music festival was run. Clearly the entire event, along with the surf, food and wine and other aspects to the event are huge tourism drivers for our town and the KwaDukuza municipality. Sure, that’s clearly great for the business. And like most of us, I’m all for it. My question is why the music festival has to be staged on our beach?
I get why Mr. P thought the aesthetics of the beach would be a rad location choice for the event. Party under the palms . . . etc. But when all logistics are considered, surely there is a better solution such as an open field or park where the festival could be staged? This would immediately solve the several contentious issues I could list that arose from hosting it on the beach.
1. The traffic disaster on Ocean Drive would be averted.
2. The noise disturbances for my Facebook friend and his cronies in the neighbourhood would be averted.
3. The forced removal by security of the drunken, disorderly kids passed out on the verandahs of Azura and the bakery on Friday morning would not have transpired.
4. The seriously alarming amount of beach pollution generated by thousands of revelling music festival kids would be avoided.
Because let’s be honest here, neither the festival organisers, nor the sponsors or musical acts that graced the stage, or even the majority of the kids who attended the event will have to live through the consequences of the party.
The organisers and sponsors will no doubt have retreated back to their corporate offices, the holiday makers are heading home while we have to be mindful that our children don’t choke on a cigarette butt next Sunday at the beach.
So as I said, I’m not a prude, nor a hypocrite. I don’t blame the kids. Hell, we all spent part of our youth jolling till sunrise. But surely when it comes to July 2015, we’ll sit back and look at our options and consider that logistically, the Salt Rock beach is no place for a three day music festival.

BRENDON KEGEL
Salt Rock