Music festival described as accommodating and beneficial.
Beach Road Weekend, the late summer music festival held in Tisbury’s Veterans Memorial Park, received repeated support and compliments from a host of people Wednesday at a select board meeting.
Josh Goldstein of the Mansion House, JB Blau of Copper Anchor, Sarah York of CB Stark, and Jeff Canha of Husselton Head Oysters were among the business leaders who praised the event and declared it economically beneficial.
Neighbors also spoke positively of the music festival. Steve May, who lives on Causeway Road, said, “I’m a strong supporter of Beach Road Weekend.”
Highlighting what he saw as the care festival management had taken to be respectful of abutters, May said festival truck drivers who parked along Causeway Road were careful about the plantings in his yard. May saw this as a reflection of festival promoter Adam Epstein’s overall approach.
“You could tell, in the interactions with Adam, that he cared about us being nextdoor neighbors and wanted to know what we thought as the thing was going on — not just weeks in advance or after but during it,” May said.
Canha, who has an eyesight deficiency, said Beach Road Weekend staff went out of their way to make sure he could enjoy the festival regardless of his disability.
“When I arrived there, I went over to a booth and they strapped an ‘accessible’ band on my arm and led me up onto a raised platform in front of the sound booth,” Canha said. “I’m telling you, that Sunday at Beach Road festival, could possibly be the best day of 2022 for me except for finding out that papers can be taken out tomorrow to fill Mr. Gomez’s position until the next election.”
Canha didn’t specifically announce he was running to fill Gomez’s seat and couldn’t immediately be reached the next day for comment.
Former select board member Jeff Kristal, a bed and breakfast owner, took a playful shot at Epstein before extolling his three day music event.
“Everyone has nice things to say about Adam,” Kristal said. “I don’t really care for Adam but he put on a heck of an event. This is something good for the town and for the Island.”
If need be, Kristal recommended tweaking the number of attendees and the start and stop times of the shows depending on input from town departments.
Kristal pointed out other towns have signature events such as Illumination Night in Oak Bluffs, the Fourth of July parade in Edgartown, the Agricultural Fair in West Tisbury, and the Outermost Inn brunch in Aquinnah. Kristal said Tisbury now has a “showcase” event that supports local musicians, boosts the local economy, adds “embarkation revenue,” and increases meals and lodging taxes.
“I’m in support of the festival,” Idalyn Macchia-Gilstad said. “I’m a resident and taxpayer of Tisbury and I feel like this is just the shot in the arm that our town has needed for years and it exceeded my expectations; the people were great; the help was great; the food was great; the music was stupendous.”
Camp Jabberwocky staffer John Knower told the board Esptein has gone out of his way to accommodate the special needs campers.
“Each time there’s been a Beach Road Weekend, Adam has invited the whole camp and made us feel so welcome,” Knower said. “And his team coordinates with the police and makes it easy for me to drop them off with the red bus and his team gets us up and gets us great seats and their parents come with them — everybody when they leave cannot believe what a wonderful experience it is. And the campers, it’s the highlight of their summer. So on behalf of everybody at Camp Jabberwocky, we’d like to thank the Beach Road Weekend for making it the best weekend of the whole summer for the campers.”
“As a resident of Tisbury, I’m also loving the fact that we really did well with this concert,” select board member John Cahill said. And my business itself did well (Cahill owns a Hertz rental agency)…So my only goal would be to make some improvements. And we just need more time to figure out what those improvements would be from hearing from everyone.”
It wasn’t all praise for the festival. While nobody outside town government spoke out on the Zoom, town administrator Jay Grande told the board some complaints had come across his desk.
Grade told the board he held a “post concert assessment meeting” on Oct. 5.
“Some of the discussions led to some recommendations,” Grande said. “But overall the finding by staff was that the event went smoothly, particularly from a public safety perspective, and the actual numbers of attendees for the concert was more than manageable by our public safety officials. The maximum attendance from time to time was 10,500 attendees…”
Among the recommendations, according to Grande, was getting a better handle on the open and closing of the Lagoon Pond Bridge. Grande said the opening and closing of the bridge was of concern particularly when a storm hit during one day of the festival and folks trying to get to Oak Bluffs were hampered.
“So there needs to be some closer communications with the operator of the Lagoon Pond Bridge,” Grande said.
Grande said some “parking issues” also arose on Skiff Avenue and Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. He suggested more proactive measures were needed on those roadways.
Grande said a desire remained to have SSA ferries diverted from Oak Bluffs to Vineyard Haven. Such diversions would have aided with bridge-related traffic and with folks trying to escape foul weather.
Without citing who made the complaints, Grande said town hall received some complaints from neighbors, including about noise levels, lack of passability to a bike path, and odors emanating from porta potties.
Email correspondence sent to the town showed one person in particular, Laurie David, was displeased with the entire event. David’s email wasn’t included in information The Times received from the town following a records request. It was shared with The Times by David. G rande, in a followup to The Times records request, said David’s email didn’t come up in his search.
“The question regarding the Beach Road Music Festival isn’t, did people have a good time,’ David wrote. ”They did. Nor is the question whether the promoter pulled off this “monstrous” event, he did. The real question is, what are the costs, seen and unseen and is the size and scale of the concert appropriate for our fragile island.”
David went on to argue the festival was deficient in waste management, in supporting local businesses and local transportation vendors, and in preserving the turf at Veterans Memorial Park. David also wrote that the festival produced unacceptable emissions and sewage. David wrote that the festival asked too much of municipal services and infrastructure.
In the public records obtained by The Times, Grande wrote to Epstein about the condition of the field. “Kirk has indicated that the field restoration is not nearly adequate,” Grande wrote, referencing DPW director Kirk Metell. The email alleged “seed slice” was not done and that glass was found in the field. Epstein offered a detailed rebuttal that included before and after drone photos, and details from the company he hired about what was done to the field. Epstein said since no glass products were sold at the festival and teams of people scoured the field for trash, he’s not sure where the glass came from that was found. To allegations that the glass was in topsoil used by his contractor to repair the field, Epstein offered to hire a team to check.
“Additionally, I find it coincidental that Ben Robinson found glass in the field today, after he had been walking that field for two weeks looking for flaws and finding nothing, and only after I had a very contentious phone call with the team from the Field Fund on Tuesday morning,” Epstein wrote in an email Sept. 16. “There is simply no way I had anything to do with the glass found in the field. Not a chance … Although I doubt it thoroughly, if the topsoil provided by Jon Fragosa contained glass, I’m certain that he would be accountable enough to address it and remedy it. Jon is a man of integrity who is willing to defend his work.”
Indeed Fragosa defended his work in an email saying screened topsoil from Goodale’s was used. He was somewhat critical of how the field is maintained and offered a suggestion for town leaders who answer the complaints. “In any case there are also too many people who know too little about turf making assertions that are not based on facts … maybe the best thing in the future is to have the restoration plans and budget in place ahead of time so the town officials, who field (no pun intended) the questions and or complaints, can have a better grasp and feel for the process and be better able to explain to the individuals who inquire.”
Fragosa added that the field would look better in a few weeks.
As Grande referenced during the meeting, there is an email from John Zannini of SALT MV complaining about odors from porta-potties. Zannini said electrical cables to his business were also knocked down by a truck delivering to the festival.
“Beach Road Weekend has had quite a negative impact on my business for the entire period of setup through dismantling for the third year in a row,” Zannini wrote. He pointed to trucks causing dust and customers unwilling to go to his business because of the “chaos and traffic.”
In an email response, Epstein blamed the foul “dead fish smell” on something emanating from the former Hinckley’s.
Maura Valley, the town’s health agent, inspected the portable toilets and found no odor “except the freshener used in the units.”
Other emails obtained in the records request include one from Silvia Vogt, a neighbor of the festival, who asked that neighbors be able to use the park’s bike paths during non-festival hours and there are dozens of emails from town departments trying to iron out payments from Beach Road Weekend to police and fire departments.
Per an agreement with the town, Epstein pays $37,500 to the town to license the festival plus $2,500 for a showing of “Jaws”. Epstein also pays for police, ambulance, fire and DPW services.
Use of the fire department cost Epstein $14,905 and $36,010 for the Tisbury Police Department. It also cost $5,280 for use of the Edgartown Police Department, $4,196.36 for the West Tisbury Police Department, and $5,070 for the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office.
Grande said another meeting on the concert will be held in the first week of November and will be in person at either the Tisbury Emergency Services Building or the Tisbury Senior Center. An exact date is not set yet though because he must check on the availability of those two venues.
Updated with some of the correspondence from a public records request.
“ Everyone has nice things to say about Adam,” Jeff Kristal said. “I don’t really care for Adam, but he put on a heck of an event.”
Nice to see some class shine brightly, as it’s a pleasure to read of such tact as Jeff Kristal’s. It’s such a shame he no longer sits on the throne in public.
I think the reason no one was on the zoom to comment negatively was because the Selectmen decided to take the issue up out of the order that was published in the agenda. At least that was why i wasn’t there to comment. It was addressed as the first item, instead of at the end of the meeting per the Agenda. The festival is always referred to as 3 days. It is not. It’s actually 9 days when you include set up and clean up. My complaints about this festival center on its massive size, its impact on our fragile island, the lack of requirements for sustainability and the general question of who is this serving. There were many people upset about the festival on various facebook and community sites. I urge them all to speak up too.
Hi Laurie. I wish you’d have accepted our repeated invitations to consult with us on improving our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Perhaps a little more engagement from you could help overcome the challenges you see.
But, for the record, our attendance is smaller than Ag Fair, with the benefit of less automotive and vehicular traffic.
Please honor your commitment you made to meet in person to discuss how we can incorporate your concerns into assisting us
And, also for the record, there were several opponents of the festival on the call. How did they manage to make it when you could not? We’re sorry that we missed hearing your perspective among them. The agenda item went on for around an hour with plenty of opportunity for all to be heard.
But, in closing, we’re far from perfect and have several areas we can and will improve. As I’ve said to you repeatedly in private over the last two years, you can join us and make real improvements, or just throw darts. I’d prefer that you join us and make real progress.
agreed laurie – the event was not environmentally beneficial. looking at the mounds of recyclables that were put into the landfill due to lack of recycling was just awful.
There MUST be an Island-wide, extremely focused, community meeting to discuss ALL of the detail of this event — especially the cost/benefit to actual Island resident incurring the Beach Road Weekend intrusion — and an actual VOTE to determine best steps forward. The potential damage for a public event of this size and scope (inevitably growing larger as fast as possible) to the Island residents and the Island itself needs serious, specific, and immediate analysis and determination. Martha’s Vineyard is in fact a rural ISLAND with extremely limited resources — especially in the HIGH season of August. This event demands serious consideration before it’s too late.
Laurie, as well as several other critics like yourself, have been invited to sit down in and discuss their concerns on multiple occassions, but you’ve chosen to call us names and claim authority over what the Vineyard “is.”
You call me arrogant for calling out your hypocrisy and bigotry and baseless claims about a three day festival causing harm, and about the type of person I am. What gives you that authority? Who appointed you, Laurie, or Jackie arbiters of what the islands capacity is? What gives you the experience to understand what the islands capabilities are?
I’m here, willing to talk in person, away from a website message board, but for some reason, you refuse. Why?
Why don’t you engage? If you really cared to effect or influence change, it must happen among humans, not pixels.
Right on cue, and I hadn’t even commented yet. Lashing out is the default mode for Adam Epstein.
You’ll have your way, Adam. Self-interest (greed) wins the day here, short sided though it may be. $101,111.36 is a hefty sum to lay out, as this article glorifies and outlines. I can only imagine what was raked in to make it so worth your while. FYI, your attacking accusations of bigotry (!) and hypocrisy against your detractors, of all ridiculous, unfounded blather, tells the public all we need to know about Adam Epstein. If this is how you behave after a “successful” event, I can only imagine your conduct if off-islanders hadn’t bought those insanely priced tix that were gobbled up by those who can afford such things. I wouldn’t expect you to use this perfect opportunity, after this nice article from the Times, to, you know, express your gratitude toward your supporters. Maybe you forgot to say thank you.
The Island hasn’t been rural for 60+ years. The only town in the county that is still rural is Gosnold.
The justified objections to this monstrosity will go mostly ignored or talked over, but we can expect more of the arrogant, entitled lashing out by the promoter who accuses objectors of being against fun, music, and family enjoyment. He’s done it many times in these pages, going so far as to ignore the comments that congratulated him while angrily lashing out at those who object. When I pointed out how this is an off-island money grab that actually goes against island ways of enjoying (and protecting) the island, Adam told me I am like a typical Trump supporter and I should stay locked away at home with border walls. Not everyone has nice things to say about the person who brings a disruptive, destructive, too large event to a residential neighborhood. And lots of people don’t really care for Adam, not even a little bit.
The reason why this damaging horror show will continue is because there is not an off-island dollar that goes unwanted by many islanders who only care about sustainability when they don’t stand to make a buck. End of story. When you see the pot store advertising that they are within walking distance from this “family” event, as well as the advertised thousand dollar-plus seats, you get my point. This has nothing to do with the island except an opportunity to abuse what we appreciate about it. It is nothing more than a way to make money in a big, end-of-season money grab from off-islanders. Music is merely that means to the destructive end.
Jackie, You repeatedly and consistently proselytize about keeping people who don’t subscribe to your concept of what the island is, out of and off the vineyard . You sling pejoratives like “arrogant” and “greed” without any evidence, and wonder why your bigotry gets called out.
You seem thoroughly confused why your nativist and bigoted world views are ignored. It’s because you regularly espouse bigoted and nativist tropes about visitors coming to the island bringing diseases and troubles.
The island HAS changed in the last thirty years. It’s pushed regular quality of life opportunities out. All the vitality of the music scene of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s have been lost. Those experiences have been pushed away by nativists like you.
I love alternative lifestyles and am a better human for embracing what I don’t know and leaning in to it. I do not fight, like you, to keep those people and experiences away. I do not build barriers as you do. Anyone can participate in the world my friends and family live in.
Stop the wall building Jackie.
Sadly, this event commandeers our lovely family friendly public athletic field, where anyone should be free to come and go, for ten days in August.
Only 355 days a year to enjoy the field.
Wicked fun playing softball in February…..brrrr
Which is available due to Vineyard Haven tax payers less we forget
Adam, if by saying “you have been invited to sit down and discuss concerns on multiple occasions” you mean the one or two comments you left on an instagram page? I honestly didn’t consider that a real invitation to talk. That said, if you want to have an honest face to face, open conversation, I am up for trying. Email me and let’s arrange it. Mutual associates have my email. Thanks, Laurie
And, no, this festival is not remotely an intrusion for only 3 days, and it will only grow larger, as fast as possible.
However, the entitled, transparent, narcissistic self-serving attempted manipulation to command support for an off-Island personal ego trip and money grab is blatantly obvious. It’s laughable.
And these comments reflect exactly why the actual residents of Martha’s Vineyard — those who protect the Island all 12 months per year — MUST VOTE on whether the Beach Road Weekend intrusion is a rational choice for our Island. The entire Island is NOT for rent, nor sale, for your personal greed and ego, Adam. Your event threatens the well being of everyone else here. Island wide.
And, if your comment above was directed to me, none of it was based in factual truth. It’s the Island community that needs to meet together to discuss whether WE support the idea of your personal money grab and intrusion using the extremely limited resources and Island infrastructure of our home. Anything that affects the natural environment, habitability, personal enjoyment, character, and identity of Martha’s Vineyard affects those who live here all year the most. That’s not you, Adam. Why not move your event to the considerably sizable property (drive-in movie theater) you OWN on Cape Cod? That would meet all your needs — and protect ours. Stop trying to exploit the Island we work hard for, and have personally sacrificed for, to sustain for years and for future generations. This isn’t about YOU. That’s the entire point of our actual Island community.
The irony of this situation is that Adam Epstein seems to be trying to recreate the idea of the counterculture music scene of the 60s-80s. Those musicians played in clubs and bars. There was no outdoor days long music festival here. That was Woodstock in Bethel, New York. If the interest is in reintroducing a music experience on the Island, open a year round club/bar here.
And, for your reference, those you’re communicating with are in fact the people who were here then, so we get it, even more than you do. You’re arguing with the people who you’re trying to emulate. The truth is, your days long outdoor festival simply does not belong here. Perhaps you could rent out the MVRHS state-of the-art PAC for February school vacation week? That would serve everyone’s interest. Call Charlie Esposito.
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