SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — An electronic music festival at Snapdragon Stadium caused a flood of noise complaints from San Diego residents over the weekend.
The three-day Niteharts festival took place from Friday to Sunday and featured popular electronic dance music artists like ISOxo and Knock2. The genre is known for heavy bass, fast tempo and repeated beats — a sound that permeated through the streets of San Diego and caused an influx of complaints from neighbors.
Posts on the popular Nextdoor website where people can discuss what’s happening in their neighborhoods showed dozens of posts from San Diegans who said they could hear music and feel the thumping from the bass at the festival as far as La Mesa, North Park, Clairemont and Point Loma.
A petition in the comments encouraged those bothered by the noise to report it to their local news stations as well as police.
At least a dozen people called and emailed FOX 5/KUSI Sunday to complain.
“This festival noise is negatively affecting tens of thousands of residents who live not just in the immediate vicinity of the stadium, but thousands more who are miles away from the festival site,” wrote one reader.
Another reader said that the noise was keeping their child awake, while another said they could hear the “constant, vibrating” throughout their home even with all the windows and doors closed.
Snapdragon Stadium is located in the Mission Valley neighborhood near many homes and apartments.
Oak View Group, which handles marketing and PR for Snapdragon Stadium, said in an email Sunday that it was aware of the concerns and had taken steps throughout the weekend to respond to them.
It said that ahead of the festival, the team held weekly meetings to coordinate sound management, distributed newsletters to neighbors with set times and ensured that performances were below the 95-decibel sound limit.
The company said in its statement that “atmospheric weather conditions from Tropical Storm Rachel played a significant role in the unusual way sound carried into surrounding neighborhoods, as this was not experienced during earlier sound checks or previous years of the festival.”
This is the third year that the festival has taken place at Snapdragon Stadium.
Tropical Storm Rachel brought cloudy skies, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding to the county over the weekend. According to reporting by Nexstar station WRBL in Georgia, low lying clouds can cause sound waves to bend and refract, making noises sound louder and travel more easily through the atmosphere. Cooler weather and strong winds can also contribute to louder noises.
“Following concerns raised Friday evening, we worked with festival production to implement additional sound mitigation measures, including reducing low-frequency output, adding dedicated subwoofer limiters, and applying system-wide sound limits,” said Oak View Group.
“For today’s final day, we have further lowered sound levels, shortened sound check by two and a half hours, and adjusted speaker output to help reduce sound spill into surrounding neighborhoods. Sound levels will continue to be monitored throughout the day, and tonight’s performance will end at 10 p.m.,” the group added.
“Moving forward, we will evaluate sound data, the effectiveness of these adjustments, and community feedback to identify improvements for future outdoor festivals.”
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