{"id":826585,"date":"2026-07-26T05:11:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/826585\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T05:11:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:11:50","slug":"as-severe-storms-threaten-edmonton-festivals-what-triggers-the-call-to-evacuate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/826585\/","title":{"rendered":"As severe storms threaten Edmonton festivals, what triggers the call to evacuate?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Outdoor festivals in Edmonton are putting their emergency plans to the test this year, as unprecedented rainfall and severe thunderstorms take their toll on the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Saturday, multiple festivals, including the Neon Skies Festival, the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival and Taste of Edmonton, were forced to evacuate due to a severe thunderstorm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 9:34 p.m. until 10:24 p.m., we had \u2014 in that 45 minutes \u2014 almost 5,000 people on site that we safely evacuated,\u201d said Donovan Vienneau, the executive director for Taste of Edmonton. \u201cNo casualties, no injuries, everybody got out of here safely.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time Vienneau has had to shut down the festival under the current leadership of the annual event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while Vienneau said the evacuation of Taste of Edmonton went as well as he could have hoped for, evacuating large-scale events doesn\u2019t come without its challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jaimie Olchowski travelled to Edmonton from Saskatoon for the Neon Skies Festival. Before the singer Kesha was about to take the stage, an emergency alert was played through speakers notifying attendees that the show would be suspended due to weather conditions.<\/p>\n

The Saturday night show was ultimately cancelled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Olchowski said she believes communication between the event organizers and the attendees during and after the storm wasn\u2019t clear. She said festival-goers were left confused as to where they could safely go.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | Challenging weather is testing Edmonton festivals this summer:\"\"<\/p>\n

How to stay safe at festivals if severe weather hits<\/p>\n

Edmonton is right in the middle of summer festival season and this year has come with some challenging weather. CBC\u2019s Sam Brooks takes a look at how festivals are working to keep people safe.<\/p>\n

In a statement to CBC News, the Oilers Entertainment Group (OEG), which organized the Neon Skies Festival, said attendees and staff were forced to evacuate the Fan Park in the Ice District and seek shelter as part of OEG\u2019s standard emergency procedures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OEG also noted that it is reviewing next steps and will be communicating directly with ticket holders once additional information is available.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

KDays was also hit by the storm on Saturday. Speaking broadly about what happens when severe weather hits festival grounds, KDays director Jessie Radies explained why organizers may avoid calling for a full evacuation and enact shelter-in-place protocols instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to push people out into bad weather if they should be sheltering in place,\u201d Radies said.<\/p>\n

She said that a full-scale evacuation of the grounds would pose its own unique challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think any time you\u2019re trying to\u00a0get all of our guests off the site at the same time, there will be some bottlenecks, specifically in our parking lots. Our site is not designed to absorb or have that many people leave all at the same time. But if people are in their vehicles, they\u2019re relatively safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When to make the call\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Vienneau, there are two main factors that impact the decision to enact emergency response protocols: lightning and wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s rain that is happening in and around the festival, and as long as there\u2019s no lightning strikes, then we can make an executive decision on whether we can proceed and keep the festival open or not,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To mitigate the risk posed by severe weather, both Vienneau and Radies said they have systems in place to continuously monitor the weather on site at their respective festivals. <\/p>\n

Communication strategies are also put in place to ensure that everyone is aware of any risks the weather may present, as well as what to do in case of an emergency situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We can take rain, we can take extreme heat, but smoke you can\u2019t blow it away, because more smoke just fills its place.- Terry Wickham, Edmonton Folk Music Festival producer<\/p>\n

For outdoor festivals, specifically ones with large metal stages like KDays, the threat of lightning is especially dangerous.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the lightning is within 12 kilometres, nobody can be on the stage,\u201d said Radies. \u201cAnd there has to be at least a 30-minute break between lightning strikes before it\u2019s safe to resume operations on the stage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vienneau said Taste of Edmonton has similar parameters set around lightning, but added the real pain for festival producers is the wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Folk Music Festival is no stranger to how dangerous strong winds can be. Dangerous winds forced the festival to evacuate in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the wake of that weather event, the festival completed a safety audit to ensure its infrastructure could resist high winds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TarpsA look at Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2017, the year it was evacuated because of wind. (CBC)<\/p>\n

This year, however, it\u2019s not the threat of storms that concerns Terry Wickham, the festival\u2019s producer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the air quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have on-site continuous monitoring of wildfire smoke,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially \u2026 the dangerous particles that can get in our bloodstream and do damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The threat of wildfire smoke is also what prompted the folk festival\u2019s organizers to acquire cancellation insurance in case the event is forced to evacuate due to dangerous conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can take rain, we can take extreme heat, but smoke you can\u2019t blow it away, because more smoke just fills its place,\u201d said Wickham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-826585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}