Update 3-15-18

A meeting with the Alki Community Council revealed a few more details about SubPop Records plans for a massive one day music festival on Alki Aug. 11. Most of what they discussed with those attending was similar to the meeting with Admiral Neighborhood Association on March 12 but questions from those attending brought out some additional information. They said the police presence would likely be the biggest in West Seattle history with dozens of off duty officers on hand for crowd control and security. The area residents were assured that the access to "the flats" area of Alki would be tightly controlled to prevent issues of people trying to park in the neighborhood for the event. Levels of access will be set up to permit residents or those designated to be there to get in. Potential damage to the Alki Elementary playfield, which will be used for one music stage was a question which SubPop's CEO Megan Jasper said was covered by their insurance. STG's Mason Sherry said the load in would likely begin on the Thursday before as elements of the festival would be brought in and stored on site. A question about the landscaping near the Alki Bathhouse came up and SubPop said they would look at methods of protecting it from people damaging it during the event. A suggestion from the crowd came up to have bike share bikes stored at Yancy and Bradford Streets to permit easier access was taken note of. 

Jasper said this event would require an ongoing conversation and vowed to come back to the group and update them on progress as more details were confirmed. The number of shuttles, how water traffic might be handled, and other core issues are still being nailed down.

Original post 3-12-18

SubPop Records came to the Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting on  March 13 to share more details and answer questions about their planned event on Alki, Saturday, Aug. 11. SPF 30, will celebrate the storied Seattle record label's 30 years in business with a massive one day concert that faces some serious planning hurdles. The event will include: 4 stages of live music, wine and beer gardens, merchandise booths and non-profit tables, and a family-friendly area complete with inflatables, food trucks, and live music for, and perhaps by, kids. This festival will take place from noon to 10pm along Alki Avenue SW. The bands appearing will be announced at the end of May, "But the majority of the bands that will be playing are fairly recent acts with some fun surprises," SubPop said.

CEO of SubPop Megan Jasper, Retail Administrator Kara Mattaini, Operations Manager Gabe Carter were joined by Mason Sherry from Seattle Theater Group and Executive Director of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society Jeff McCord in the presentation.

Jasper thanked those assembled and the community and noted that SubPop recording artists that include Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Fleet Foxes, and many more, "have gone on to become really popular... Some of them have even changed the world. and really impacted generations." She noted that she lives in West Seattle and "nearly 1/3rd of our employees live here too."

Mattaini described the basic structure of the event:

"We've reserved Alki Ave SW on Saturday August 11 from noon to 10pm. The street will be closed from 57th Street SW all the way up to 63rd SW and that's roughly Blue Moon Burgers to Cactus Restaurant. It's free to the public but there will be some fundraising and one is the Southwest Seattle Historical Society. We've been working with them closely and we believe in their cause of preserving West Seattle and its history and the second will be a Seattle non-profit that's working with the homeless community. We haven't named them yet but we're very close.

The street will be closed to traffic and we will have stages set up, beer gardens and merchant tables all along Alki Ave SW. and we will have a family and kid-friendly area set up as well. The first music stage will be on 57th Street right in front of Blue Moon Burgers. The second music stage will be on the east side of the Alki Bathhouse facing east. The third stage will be on the west side of the Alki Bathhouse facing West. Those two stages will never be performing at the same time. The fourth music stage will be on Alki Community field in the family and kid-friendly area. We will be featuring performers from the West Seattle School of Rock house band, and the Not-Its with kid friendly music on that stage. There will be bouncy houses, food trucks and a record fair. We will have ice cream and shaved ice and all kinds of things to help families go and relax. That area will close down around 6pm. The next stage to close down will be the one on 57th Street SW. around 8pm. leaving the two main stages open. The last music set will end promptly at 10pm. That will be the west facing stage and will face the open water to mitigate any noise. We've been working hard the last couple of months, introducing ourselves to the community. We've been working with the city, the county and the transportation department."

The stages will be on the pavement, not the sand, leaving the beaches open.

CEO Jasper offered details:

Jasper explained that this is not the first event for SubPop. They held one ten years ago in Marymoor Park that was a two day benefit event. "We gave out a lot of money to many many organizations, and we did it again five years ago in Georgetown." The projected number for Alki comes from that experience.

"We don't know if we will get 30,000 people but it feel irresponsible not to plan accordingly. We know that this also impacts residents so we want to be mindful and considerate so we are working closely with STG and with the city of Seattle to make sure this is a really positive event. We want it to have a long term positive impact on the community. Some things that we are doing to reduce any negative impact, we are being as mindful as we can to as to sound and what sound will be in a residential area. We have some stages that will close down early. We have the lane along the commercial side of Alki as an emergency vehicle lane. We will make sure that residential streets remain accessible to emergency vehicles. We have a sub committee we part of to make sure we have our i's dotted and our t's crossed.  We are hoping to make this a zero waste event. We know that pollution is a factor so we have volunteers working with us to clean up the area on the day of the event. We are also partnering with Puget SoundKeeper to come in on Monday and again clean up the area.

We are talking about closing off more than just 57thSW to 63rd. One of the city department heads suggested closing off Alki down to California Place SW. We are not sure about this but it would make for a safer event we believe. It would be closed off except to public transportation, emergency vehicles and local access."

She was asked about the beer and wine gardens and said, "Aside from the Whale Tail Park beer garden we have two other ones that will be down by the water not far from the two stages and bathrooms. There will be local beers although I don't know exactly which ones yet. We will probably have some not local too. We're encouraging all the merchants down on Alki to make it everything that they want to have whatever selection they might need." They are working with "Lil Woody's" to set up the beer gardens.

Jasper said when asked about boats off shore, "I expect we will have heavy boat traffic. We will end up talking about this with the subcommittee to make sure this is safe." She also added that "There will be a lot of bathrooms," meaning portable toilets on site.

Gabe Carter Operations Mgr. spoke about transportation and parking:

"We realize that even on a normal summer day that Alki gets pretty congested so in order for as many people as possible to attend the event we are trying to secure a lot from the Port right there at Terminal 5 (22 acres across from the 7-11 on Harbor Ave SW) which we would use for parking and also for running shuttles from the Morgan Junction, Alaska Junction and Admiral Junction. We are trying to partner with bike shares (lime bike and others) to leave bikes there and with the King County Water Taxi and try get them to do extra runs to pull people from Seattle. We will still maintain the bus lane which means there are four different busses that stop there. We are in partnership with Uber and Lyft and will try to set up a designated area where people can go to get their ride." Carter was asked about access on Bonair Drive SW (and the tendency for people to park on both sides of that narrow road on even a normal sunny day) and SubPop said they would look at that issue.

"All the residential streets that go down to Alki will be a topic for the subcommittee," Jasper said.

"Part of our thinking," Carter explained, "Is that we would like to incentivize taking the bike or Uber or Lyft with a coupon for a one way free ride down there. If we communicate ahead of time those people have a chance to staff that day accordingly."

Jeff McCord Exec. Dir. of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society explained their involvement:

"We are a fixture in the Alki neighborhood and we are steward there so we wanted to help from very early on with the residents and businesses. I will say of the organizations that I've seen do a big event I've been very very impressed with how SubPop is doing it... We're going to be allowed to run one of the beer gardens and be involved with the West Seattle Senior Center to help run that. We also are going to have a music exhibit at the Log House Museum that coincides with this event. As you know we have some famous musicians who actually live in West Seattle and there are a lot of connections to the music business."

Seattle Theater Group's Mason Sherry spoke about policing and emergency services for the event:

"There will be a serious police presence obviously to ensure traffic is properly done and make sure the festival is held in a safe way and off duty officers will be working basically for crowd safety. We are definitely going to layer it so there's not just a small presence but a very significant one so if there are incidents we can respond to them in the most appropriate way. There will be a paramedic hub and parmedics spread out so both sides of the festival get emergency services."

Another meeting is set for Alki Congregational Church on March 15

Alki Community Council:

March 15th, 7pm at the Alki Congregational United Church of Christ - 6115 SW Hinds St.