The Squamish festival media tent offers the VIP treatment

As anyone who has worked in the media for longer than three weeks knows, things have changed over the years. Back in the day, to be a working journalist covering a major festival meant semi-VIP treatment in a tent set off from the unwashed masses. Think garbage pails full of blow, male (and female) escorts, and enough free liquor to float the Titanic. You know what the media was treated to at a recent big-ticket festival just past Whistler? 

That would be a single cooler filled with water. Not bottles—those were evidently gone two minutes after the gates opened. No we're talking a half-foot of luke-warm water sitting in the cooler, with a couple of grass clippings and some dirt for flavouring.

Here's what you are missing out on in the Squamish Valley Music Festival Tent: cold beer, just sitting there for the taking. No less than Billy Graham would be impressed by such attention to detail. Well done, festival organizers. It's just like the old days, Except that the garbage pails of blow are proving a tad difficult to locate.