If you wondered what was going on in Schmitz Park tonight …

| West Seattle news | West Seattle parks | WS culture/arts

After several texts and e-mails asking what was going on in Schmitz Park – crowd sounds and music, carrying for a distance – we went over just in time to see everybody leaving, with someone explaining it was a “one-time theater performance” for which the producers had a permit until 9 pm. Just got back and now a web search turns up more details. “Din V: A Convergence” was a joint production of Washington Ensemble Theatre and the band Kithkin, free but with only 100 tickets available, given out at a Capitol Hill coffee shop earlier this month. Full description on this Facebook event page.

B September 21, 2014 (9:24 pm)

Whatever it was, it sucked. Sounded like heavy metal from a block away, extremely loud (I’m guessing at least 100db) and annoying. Go play goth in the woods somewhere a little farther from town next time please.

Colby September 21, 2014 (9:42 pm)

Bugger! I heard the music but thought it was a raging house party. I’ve seen Kithkin a few times and enjoy their live shows.

WSB September 21, 2014 (9:46 pm)

Sorry, I wish we’d known about this in advance … although with the limited-ticket giveaway earlier in the month, I can see why it didn’t turn up as a potential calendar listing. Looks like some imagery on Instagram, haven’t checked YouTube yet.

diverlaura September 21, 2014 (9:56 pm)

KithKin = Tree Punks… First time i’d heard that descriptive :)

Music isn’t bad.. very throwback sounding… remind me vaguely of the replacements or other 80’s alternative punk-whatever.

http://youtu.be/6_aEIioZKFg

Pat September 22, 2014 (10:14 am)

I’m pretty surprised that this was allowed. Schmitz is a small and delicate old-growth ecosystem with sensitive wetland areas, last of its kind in Seattle – and 100 people are officially permitted in there to party (“hike, bear witness, be touched, fight, and tell secrets”) with people who are “not light-hearted or ill-equipped”? Was there an official there to guard the delicate forest floor plants and to make sure that the animals who use this forest as their refuge were not disturbed by noise or light?
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TR, do you know what the permitting process might have been and what are the standard restrictions for such an event in a sensitive natural area?

WSB September 22, 2014 (10:45 am)

No, I don’t – but it certainly wasn’t the first one-off event there; before we figured this out, we recalled at least one film shoot a few years back. https://westseattleblog.com/2009/08/schmitz-park-access-limited-this-weekend-film-crew-at-work
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As the storyline indicates the old-growth forest as an integral part of the scenario, I would like to think the attendees behaved respectfully. The only thing that brought this to our attention was the music and cheering toward the end, and we wrote this just because we received a flurry of questions. I’m inquiring with Parks, though, mostly because I’m wondering where we might have found advance word of this, just so, when those inquiries came in, we would have known without driving across the peninsula to try to find out (or better yet, would have had a quick mention in the daily preview) … TR

wetone September 22, 2014 (2:11 pm)

That film shoot was very minor compared to this. Be interested to know who is responsible for cleanup and damages if repairable in this type of area, is there a fee or bond one puts up. Does the fee if any even cover clean up by parks people or security if needed ? As far as I’m concerned there seems to be continuing bad decisions by our head parks people. 100 tickets but how many people really were there as it’s an open area.

Mark Ahlness September 22, 2014 (2:46 pm)

This is disturbing on many so levels. First, it seems it was sponsored by the Office of Arts and Culture Seattle and the Nature Consortium – ? The group also has an extensive Flickr set, where you can see the lights, the band, the amps, people – clearly all over the place in this environmentally sensitive area: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127243729@N07/sets/72157647483525200/ Unbelievable.

WSB September 22, 2014 (4:11 pm)

So here’s what I have found out so far, and I apologize that I don’t have the bandwidth to do much further investigating, but … Parks says they did have personnel on site during the event. It was permitted and per their rules. And they tell me there are two topically updated pages that list the special non-Parks-sponsored events coming up in local parks over the next few weeks – linked from a section way down on the Parks home page, and despite being a frequent city-website user, I’d never seen them before. Going to set some time aside to go look for other “hiding in plain sight” pages sometime soon.
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http://www.seattle.gov/parks/Publications/big_events.pdf
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http://www.seattle.gov/parks/Publications/bigger_events.pdf
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A very quick glance at those does reveal one thing – the windows listed are the permit windows, but NOT necessarily the exact event times (for example, there was an event at Walt Hundley Playfield the other day that was advertised by its sponsor as noon-3 pm, but the permit began a couple hours earlier, as listed on the “big events” page linked above).
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TR

Denise September 22, 2014 (4:34 pm)

This is very concerning. Even if the people involved were respectful, Schmitz Preserve is not an appropriate place for this type of event, or any event with a large group of people. The Facebook Page said 135 people attended. This is the second time in the last few months that over 100 people have “gathered” in Schmitz—the last one being a large group of schoolkids— all laughing, shouting, tromping through the forest— right in the middle of sensitive bird-nesting season. These are all good and respectful people, trying to do good things with art and have fun in the forest. I acknowledge and appreciate that. But, the forest and the wildlife that depend on it are already under enough strain with invasive species, trampling, and free-ranging domestic animals. In our national wilderness areas, we limit the size of groups to reduce impact. We should do the same in Seattle Natural Areas. Please, no more large-group events in sensitive natural areas. Have them in already-developed Parks, instead.

B September 22, 2014 (5:10 pm)

I second that. This was not a quiet bunch of nature goers, it was a bunch of partiers throwing a concert in the middle of a forest. As I mentioned in first comment, it was extremely loud – I had trouble talking inside my house over the noise (windows closed) from a block away, I can’t imagine what it sounded like inside.

Parks Dept, be good stewards of the park and let the ravers hold their events where they hold Hempfest, at places meant for large groups of people.

Pat September 23, 2014 (9:09 am)

TR, thanks as always for your followup and digging up that info from Parks. I’m glad to hear that there were Parks personnel on site – though I still think this was a Very Bad Idea to let that huge group party in there.

Sorry, comment time is over.