I'm really on both sides on this argument;
On the one-side: Despite whatever Druh's original intentions were, the launch of this event was completely boondoggled. Druh is not good at building consensus behind the scenes and then rolling it out. As it was, the festival seemed very hastily thrown together (which, by all accounts, it was), and the partial road closure was also handled poorly, with backed up traffic that made it unpleasant to use the empty road. The lack of events was unfortunate. And there was really nothing that had anything to do with the river. They should have had some events like a fun-triathalon, walking/rafting/biking. Though I understand what they were going for in making it all free and without onsite vendors, the lack of food service was also a detriment. Wouldn't it be great if there was an on-site beer garden overlooking the river, where you could just sit and have a beer on the banks of the river? And similarly some coffee service. Get a NPO to run it and keep the profits, so that it keeps the original, non-commercial approach. Have a road-hockey tournament, rather than just putting out some nets for people to use. Get celebrity teams. Have a dog agility demonstration (like they have at halftime at football games); those are a lot of fun to watch. Have a music stage. (I thought there was supposed to be one, but I didn't see it). Get Shakespeare in the Park or some other theatre companies to come over and do a show. More buskers. It needs to be absolutely packed with activities - both to participate in and to watch - rather than just having a handful of activities sprinkled through the whole day.
On the other hand, the people complaining about the traffic (from the original objecting aldermen to the people stuck in traffic) are far worse. This was probably the most publicized single-day road closure in recent Calgary history, and anyone who got stuck in traffic has themselves to blame; signs were posted along Memorial to the west, and I assume they were posted to the east as well. It takes the more or less the same amount of time to turn at 10th, go over the bridge and along the one-ways through downtown as it does going on Memorial (at least on a Sunday). In future years, I hope they shut down the entire road and rout traffic elsewhere. Nobody complains about the fact that the same stretch of Memorial (actually a longer stretch, all the way to Bridgeland) is shut down every May for a marathon. Infact, nobody even notices unless you're involved in the run or live in the area.
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