The Mayor of Sicamous is heaping praise on the organizers of the Monashee Music Festival, which took place this past weekend in his community.

The event, which ran Friday and Saturday, featured a variety of rock, country, and alternative artists, drawing an estimated 3,000 people into the town.

Sicamous Mayor Terry Rysz calls the first ever Monashee Music Festival “a real success.”

“We were overjoyed that more people entertained themselves at the music festival than we ever thought.”

“It was really busy on Friday night, we maybe would have liked to see another 30 to 40 per cent more but for our first show it was pretty damn successful, and then Saturday night as well.”

Rysz says the event went off without any major problems and notes it was a challenge to get organized.

“There is a lot that goes into it, traffic control, set up; nowadays it’s kind of onerous when it comes to all the regulations. We had to get approval from the agricultural land reserve because it was on our dog park, which is agricultural land reserve.”

Due to that, Rysz says the organizers deserve a lot of credit.

“I can’t get over how well organized it was,” he exclaimed. “There is just a tremendous amount of work that went into this by the organizers that are on the ground and overall just really well done.”

Rysz says he intends to try to convince the organizers of the event to put on Monashee again next year, suggesting it’s a good economic shot in the arm for his community.