ST PETE BEACH \u2014 A country music festival planned for the TradeWinds Resort in May has no state environmental permit, no approved site plan and has yet to submit a traffic or parking plan.<\/p>\n
And organizers did not initially realize the three-day event falls during sea turtle and shorebird nesting season.<\/p>\n
Those details emerged at the March 24 City Commission meeting, about six weeks before the Country Thunder music festival expects to open its gates. The festival, which has a ticket cap of 12,000, is hoping to draw 8,000 to 10,000 attendees May 8-10.<\/p>\n
“We know we’ve got some issues that we face that we have to address,” Kim Blevins, executive director of Country Thunder, told commissioners. “We know we have to be good stewards of the property, and we’re here to work directly with your community, not against you.”<\/p>\n
Blevins said organizers did not learn they had scheduled the festival during the first week of turtle season until after they had booked their 2026 talent lineup.<\/p>\n
“We don’t want to impede on any wildlife,” Blevins said. “But at this point, with our talent booked, it’s difficult for us to get out of those dates without a very large penalty. We would have to pay our artists to try and move those dates.”<\/p>\n
She said the organization hopes to get through this year and shift to different dates in 2026. There is no backup plan.<\/p>\n
“We’re hopeful that we’ll get our permit,” she said, adding that the group’s Arizona show typically does not receive its permit until about two weeks before the event.<\/p>\n
Mandy Edmunds, the city’s Parks and Recreation resident services director, told commissioners that TradeWinds has submitted a request for a special events permit but no action has been taken. Requirements include a traffic plan, a parking plan, a site plan, a hold-harmless agreement, a certificate of insurance, a Department of Environmental Protection permit and resolution of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission concerns.<\/p>\n
No DEP or city permit has been issued. A traffic management, transportation, parking and waste management plan has not been submitted, though Edmunds said the parties are working on it.<\/p>\n
The city is drafting a memorandum of understanding it would require before issuing a permit. The MOU would mandate no drones or pyrotechnics, a sound cap of 85 decibels, day-of-event bird and turtle monitoring, and a prohibition on future large-scale events during nesting season.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Lisa Robinson warned Blevins to expect pushback.<\/p>\n
“Hundreds of hours have been put into protecting St. Pete Beach’s wildlife,” Robinson said. “Don’t be surprised if you get large backlash from the community, because we have it in our Comp Plan to take care of our wildlife.”<\/p>\n
Robinson also asked about the Incidental Take Permit the organizers have requested from the state. Blevins said the permit provides that an organizer is not seeking to harm nesting birds but would not be held liable if incidental harm occurs.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Karen Marriott struck a more optimistic tone, calling the situation “absolutely unfortunate” but noting that large events at St. Pete Beach are not unheard of. She pointed to a large-scale Bike and Music Fest at TradeWinds a couple of years ago and a Bucs Bash held in the summer, both outside nesting season.<\/p>\n
“I think a lot of the fears are because it’s new, and that’s always concerning, but it’s certainly not unprecedented,” Marriott said. She added that she was encouraged by a discounted resident ticket rate and suggested the city allow owners of private parking lots to sell spaces, which could ease congestion.<\/p>\n
The commission will decide whether to issue the special events permit at a future meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST PETE BEACH \u2014 A country music festival planned for the TradeWinds Resort in May has no state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[97692,596,202,2149,204,203,199,201,200,33629,4624],"class_list":{"0":"post-214082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-country-thunder-festival","9":"tag-pinellas-county","10":"tag-st-pete","11":"tag-st-pete-beach","12":"tag-st-pete-headlines","13":"tag-st-pete-news","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","16":"tag-st-petersburg-news","17":"tag-tradewinds-resort","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}