THUNDER BAY – Organizers of the Wake the Giant Music Festival coming here this September have asked city council to consider buying 50 new crowd-control barriers to ensure public safety.
Co-founder Sean Spenrath made the request to the city’s quality of life standing committee, an ask that also includes storage of the barriers at Marina Park.
“I’ve been asking for these barriers since about 2022. The biggest reason is public safety. These barriers have a natural thing where the crowd kind of stands on them, so they can’t be shifted over or bowled over in front of the stage,” Spenrath told the committee on Tuesday.
He cited an incident where music-goers rushed the main stage, nearly toppling the “bike-rack style” barriers.
“We had DJ Steve Aoki perform. He had fireballs coming out in front of the stage, and it was super crazy. We had about, I think it was 7,000 people that year pushing on those barriers, and a couple started like wobbling towards the stage. So, people were hanging over, and the fire was going off,” he said.
“Thankfully, our production crew was very quick in getting a forklift, and they took these like giant stone barriers and put them in front of the barriers to ensure that they didn’t fall down. But heaven forbid if they did fall down and the people fell into the fire. It could have been quite dangerous and a very scary thing.”
After the incident, Spenrath said the organization offered to buy the barriers, but his request to have the city store them was denied.
Thunder Bay Coun. Greg Johnsen asked administration to comment on Spenrath’s claim.
Commissioner of community services Kelly Robertson recalled concerns about the original request
“I believe storage was identified as an issue back then and also the need. Does the city need this asset at that time was considered as well for the majority of our events. It’s our understanding that for the limited (number of) events organizers need this level of crowd control at an event, that there are options to procure and rent the equipment locally.”
Spenrath said he figured the council meeting would be the right time after hearing the city was willing to purchase barriers for the South Core Roar in late June.
“This is a huge investment, and I understand that, but with the marina upgrades, I think it’s a proven investment for the City of Thunder Bay because you’re going to need that infrastructure in place,” he said.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff asked about the events’ funding sources. Wake the Giant receives funding from multiple sources, including a grant from the city’s Tourism Development Fund.
Spenrath said they didn’t get the full amount requested in their grant application to the city, so they had to cut the barriers for more costly technical equipment for the show.
However, he also said that the organization is waiting for grant funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, and if that money comes through, Wake the Giant is willing to split the cost of the barricades.
Coun. Andrew Foulds moved to refer Wake the Giant’s request to administration for a report back on the cost of the barriers and their storage.
“I’m happy to move a referral motion of the contents of this deputation to our administration for a report on, I’m not trying to be silly here, but a barrier strategy because there’s obviously a lot of different ones and how we can be effective…We have all kinds of festivals, whether it’s busker festivals, the Westfort Festival. We have smaller festivals. How can these be deployed and used? I think safety is increasingly an issue, and I think we need to be creative,” he said.
Robertson said with the redevelopment of the festival area set to take place next year, city staff are willing to do work and prepare a barrier strategy report.
But because the expense wasn’t planned in the capital budget and the city is in the middle of preparing the 2028 and 2029 capital budgets, Robertson said they could have a report back by early summer 2027.
