Picture of Rockin' River Festival in Merritt from 2019/via Rockin' River
As the population of Merritt swells this weekend for a country music festival, city staff say businesses will benefit.
Tourism and economic development manager Will George says organizers with Rockin River are expecting 15-to-20-thousand guests per day during the four-day music festival.
“The businesses really notice it. All of the hotels are full this weekend, usually they get booked a year in advance for this weekend. Campsites are full, the restaurants, the gas stations, the retail stores that we have here, they all benefit from the number of people who are coming in here.”
Organizers will also be running shuttle buses to-and-from hotels and downtown Merritt every 30 minutes during most hours of the weekend.
Meanwhile, Merritt RCMP have boosted staff levels for the music festival.
Staff Sgt. Lorne Wood says the Merritt detachment will have up to 15 officers per shift, as well as officers from out of town and members from the Central Interior Traffic Services.
He says officers are reminding party-goers not to drink and drive.
“We’ve run into issues in the past where we’ve done road checks at 9, 10 o’clock in the morning and run into multiple impaired drivers. And what happens is people go there I think with the best intentions – party all night, go to sleep at 4 or 5 in the morning, sleep for three or four hours, get up then get in their car and drive. And that’s where they’re sort of getting into trouble,” Wood says.
“If you’re going to do that, you need more than a couple hours sleep if you’ve been drinking for 10 or 12 hours straight to get your blood alcohol level down below the legal limit, or to zero. Maybe it’s best if you walk into town to get stuff, or see if you can get a cab or find somebody who hasn’t been drinking the night before. We don’t want to see anybody get hurt, we want everyone to have a good time, but at the same time we don’t want to see people drinking and driving.”
The annual country music festival runs from Thursday to Sunday night at the Merritt Festival Show Site.
(Photo: rockinriverfest.com)
