Tisbury residents vented about shaking houses, damaged grass, loud noises and heavy traffic during a public meeting meant to allow neighbors of the Beach Road Weekend music festival a forum to convey their issues with the event.
Held Aug. 26 through Aug. 28, the music festival, put on by event producer Adam Epstein, was awarded a three-year contract to use Veterans Memorial Park as its venue by the town select board this February.
The festival played host to approximately 10,000 people over the course of its three days, which came back in full force in 2022 after the pandemic cancelled the event in 2020 and led to scaled-back line-ups in 2021.
Thursday’s meeting took place at the Tisbury senior center, where approximately 50 neighbors gathered to mainly voice grievances to the town select board about the festival.
“It’s really a meeting for you, the residents, the neighbors,” said Mr. Grande, who added that the town had received considerable correspondence about problems with the event.
Neighbors struck a markedly different tone than a prior forum held to discuss the event, in which dozens of Islanders appeared in support of the festival. For approximately an hour on Thursday, a different group of residents highlighted problems with noise, safety, environmental impact, traffic and damage to public property.
“The three days of the festival are pretty much a nightmare,” said nearby resident Abby Burt, who highlighted the common theme of excessive noise during the weekend.
Jessica Tartell, general manager of Chicken Alley, said that the show’s bass caused the thrift shop’s metal building to vibrate so much that several paintings were destroyed. In addition, she said, the closure of the building during the weekend caused Chicken Alley to lose out on an estimated $20,000 of income. Store earnings go to support Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.
Frequent mention was made of the severe headaches and vibrating walls caused by the loud noise, even from self-professed music lovers. While some attendees supplied proposals for acoustic mitigation, others felt solutions were out of reach.
“It’s had a dreadful impact,” said Susan Jones of the festival. “It’s taken the joy out of living in Vineyard Haven.”
Shirley Kennedy said she closely monitored the traffic near her home on Skiff Lane during the festival, and presented a series of printed pictures she had taken to the crowd. The traffic was so chaotic, she said, that on one night of the festival a policeman had to help get her car into her garage. A separate photo Ms. Kenneday displayed of damaged tree roots in the park sparked a wave of concerned murmurs among the crowd.
Damage to the field was also an issue for Tisbury resident Ben Robinson. On recent trips to the park, he said, he has been consistently finding substantial amounts of glass shards in the field; he placed a shard that he discovered earlier in the day on the table before the board.
Due to the state of the field, the youth soccer league has not been able to practice there this year, as they usually do, neighbors said.
At one point, Island resturatuer Ben DeForest spoke out strongly in favor of the event, through Mr. Grande eventually asked him to cede the floor to affected neighbors. While Mr. DeForest admitted that he had some involvement in the festival, he characterized the complaints as “conjecture” and “a not in my backyard issue.”
Other residents took issue with his framing.
“When you put [a festival] in the densest part of the year round town, it affects everyone,” said Kim Hilliard. “In all of Vineyard Haven there is nowhere to go.”
Mr. Epstein listened to residents’ concerns, and eventually made remarks of his own.
“It’s important to have meetings like this,” said Mr. Epstein. “We want the opportunity to continue to improve.”
When prompted by a question from select board member John Cahill, Mr. Epstein said he would be open to renegotiating aspects of the concert contract.
The select board ended the meeting, saying that they would continue discussion of the festival at later dates.
