Shambhala Music Festival 2017 x HipHopVancouver
Words: John Zee
Photography: Ronan Considine – @soundflashphotography
Shambhala celebrated its 20th year in festival operations this summer and the milestone was met with plenty of eagerness and heavy anticipation. Both Squamish Valley Music Festival and Pemberton Fest, 2 of BC’s other prominent music festivals, canceled their events this year leaving Shambhala the crown for being Western Canada’s most sought after party event of the summer. HipHopVancouver was on location for what was surely a momentous party chalk full of some of the world’s most prominent headlining DJ’s and producers, as well as some of the best local BC talent and live performance acts that Canada has to offer.
The weekend started off in rough shape weather wise as festival-goers and event staff were met with clouds of deep, thick smoke that was being caused by a series of nearby forest fires. Daily reports were being posted by festival staff warning of a possible evacuation, but nothing of the sort manifested until late Saturday afternoon. Prior to the eventually evacuation notices, the crowd of just over roughly 17,000 attendees, staff and volunteers were blessed with mind melting audio and bass presented by the revolutionizing technicians PK Sound, along with state of the art technicolour laser and visual art displays at each of the 6+ stages to visit.
Fire evacuation notices caused attendees to believe Shambhala would be cut a day/night early and that Saturday, Aug. 12th was to be their last day at this landmark party. However it wasn’t until a few thousand people left the farm grounds that the evacuation notices were revoked and that the festival would carry on as per normal. In the midst of the wildfire melay, several notable acts such as LTJ Bukem were unfortunately canceled. However that didn’t stop the spirits of Shambhala to be roaring high as people geared up for another night of incredible fun and thudding, bass riddled craziness.