A combination of rain, beer and rock ’n’ roll has left the field at Royal Athletic Park in need of repair and unusable for several weeks.
Kate Friars, Victoria director of parks and recreation, said the turf in the park had been churned up, the field left with bald spots. It may be out of commission until as late as November.
Already, the Mount Douglas Secondary football team has been forced to move its Sept. 20 homecoming game to Westhills Stadium in Langford, which has artificial turf.
The Vancouver Island Soccer League, which usually holds its men’s league games at the park on weekends, has also had to scramble to find other fields, said league president Vince Greco.
Greco said he’s been told Royal Athletic’s field won’t be available for soccer until Nov. 2 at the earliest, but he doubts the league will be able to play any of its games or tournaments at the park this year.
Friars said the damage to the field became obvious after the Rifflandia music festival, Sept. 12 to 15. But it was really the combination of three things — the Great Canadian Beer Festival on Sept. 6-7, the rain and Rifflandia — that caused the damage.
Friars said the city is trying to get bald spots covered with turf and the fields otherwise brought back into condition at the cost of about $20,000 — about what Rifflandia paid to use the park.
But the cost of that work is what the city normally spends each year to bring the field back into condition. It’s just this year the work has been delayed because of ongoing rain.
Friars said some discussions have been started with the organizers of Rifflandia about next year’s festival and mitigating any concerns raised during the music weekend, such as protecting the fields and noise.
But she also praised the organizers of the event and said the city remains committed to seeing Royal Athletic Park used by a wide variety of the public.
“The [Rifflandia] producers run an excellent event,” Friars said. “We have always had a good relationship with them.
“And we firmly believe [Royal Athletic Park] is a good multi-purpose venue,” she said. “We want to make sure it’s fully utilized by these events that cross over from sports to arts to movies to trade shows.”
In an email, Nick Blasko of Atomique Productions, producer of Rifflandia, said organizers are in discussions with the city about next year. “We are committed to managing our impact on the facility,” Blasko wrote.
Gerry Hieter, chairman of the Great Canadian Beer Festival, said his group has also had casual talks about how to mitigate possible damage to turf next year.
Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said he was aware of some of the damage to the field, but noted that the city is not out of pocket since repairs and reconditioning of the fields are done every year.
Fortin said city council will review this year’s season at Royal Athletic Park to see whether any adjustments can be made to address neighbours’ concerns about issues such as noise.
“We want to see if we can keep those 13,000 people [who attended Rifflandia] happy while recognizing there are a lot of communities and neighbours around there,” he said.
But he emphasized that a benefit of Royal Athletic Park is its accessibility.
“It is a public facility and we want to make sure it is available to the public and there are a great many different segments of the public,” he said.
