Big Valley Jamboree - Camrose, Alberta

kathryn S.

Wow. Huge space for campers and RV's. The concert bowl is fantastic, great seating. Lineup of artists is terrific! No shade to speak of so make sure to have sun screen and a hat! Huge storm blew in and they had to cancel one of the performances for safety reasons!

Tam K.

Amazing music, but be prepared for a bit of chaos, especially if you're a first-timer. Campsite numbers were mislabeled, leading to a long wait to get set up and disagreements with other campers. There's a large swamp in country nations that is NOT zoned off with anything, leading to 2 vehicles getting stuck, and it is mosquito heaven!
There are NO maps given out and the one that is on the website is nothing like the one the gate people have, wish they would post that one on the website so it's not such a pain trying to figure out where to go. Also, it would help when trying to figure out where you want to camp.
Country nations is "party central," so if you want quieter camping, you'll have to choose a different one. It is also a long walk to the stages.
HUGE lines for everything...food, drinks, getting in and out of main stage, bathrooms, showers, etc!
If you feel you may need to use the bathroom, don't wait as you will be standing in line for another 20ish minutes before it's your turn. There need to be way more port-a-potties added in main stage and Coors stage.
Bathrooms in campsites were not restocked with TP, so always carry your own when you go. They weren't cleaned out once over the 4 days either.
Otherwise it was a blast lol!

R D.

SCAM ALERT: be careful when purchasing packages through Big Valley Jamboree. Make sure you get what you paid for in writing, or else you may be scammed like us. We saw a package on their site advertising "VIP Lite", and it said to call for more info, so we did. Upon calling the office we were told it included the Thursday night kick off party, access to better bathrooms, and access to the VIP tent, along with daily catered lunch and dinner. Fast forward to attending the event, they wouldn't honour the catered meals. We contacted the office and they said there was "nothing they could do" as we purchased VIP Lite and not regular VIP. We told them the date we made the purchase and they made a comment about that being a training day, so possibly someone made a mistake. Well that shouldn't become our problem, BVJ should still honour what we were told when purchasing. It's not our fault that their training system obviously has holes in it and trainees aren't watched properly. We even tried to remedy the situation by settling for food vouchers, and they wouldn't provide those either. We proposed a refund as well since they didn't hold up their end of the deal and they said no to that as well, since their policy is "no refunds". Now we have to fork out a bunch more money for food that we weren't supposed to be purchasing. Very disappointing and unprofessional on your end, Big Valley Jamboree staff.

A A. R. L.

Still have kinks for sure, 30 years of experience didn't prepare them for a Morgan Wallen onslaught! Dierks Bentley was an epic show closer though!!!

Davin G.

Went for the first time and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest! Already booked our camping and tickets for next year!

Sky

Was pretty disappointed in how the Festival trains their security. I went last year (2023) with my disabled grandmother in a wheelchair. As a minor, they would refuse my admission to the handicapped section (In the VIP area) with a General Admission Wristband. Even though every plus 1 along with the handicapped/peoples with disabilities had general admission bands. So i was stuck outside of my seating area without a parent until a supervisor came (which took 30 minutes) Even though i had walked in and out with the same band for that whole weekend infront of the security guards. The supervisor told them that because i am a MINOR they legally had to let me go back to my family. This happened TWICE. With the supervisor having to tell them. Until on the second festival day they finally implemented wristbands for the Handicapped section. But, mine had fell off given they were the cheap paper bands put on loosely. And the same occurrance happened AGAIN.

We had paid extra for disabled parking, which was closer to the Handicap section than having to go all the way through the festival gates, walk 10 minutes to the stage through the gravel with a wheelchair and the Parking guards wouldn’t let us through until we had to call the person who actually sold us the parking pass. The communication between staff is so poor, the guards have absolutely no idea what they are doing. You can ask multiple guards the same thing and receive multiple different answers. Definitely require more training time before the festival.

After the show, good luck getting a cart because they basically show up whenever they want to, there is no way to call them and you can be waiting up to 2 1/2 hours. (Which we had to do because security wouldn’t let us park in the place we paid for and had to walk through the whole festival with coolers, Lawn chairs, bags and a wheelchair) Which is a great issue for people that cannot walk long distances.

During this, CFCW was giving pit tickets, I had received a pair. We were in the main pit for the majority of the day, and when the headliner of the night came out (Dallas Smith) We were refused entry and told to go to the back standing pit, which was overcrowded as it was so much smaller than the one we were in. You absolutely could not see if people were infront of you, while in the main pits, viewing was completely fine.

Along with my grandmother, her boyfriend had also came with us. He had asked for some food tickets and was given drink tickets instead. He had only realized this when he gotten back to our seating area. And because of the no refunds policy we spent $50 on drink tickets that we could not use. So we went back to the original ticket purchase and they exchanged our 5 drink tickets for 5 food tickets. Mind you, Drink tickets were $9 each and Food tickets were around $5 each from what i remember. So they did not give us our money back, of gave us an equal amount of tickets for what we paid. $50 worth of food tickets would add to 10 tickets. My grandparents aren’t drinkers and i am a minor. We attempted to talk to the manager who said that they would count the registers at the end of the night and get back to us. They never did so we had our money robbed by the staff there.

Great show though. Terrible Staff and Security Team. Tons of miscommunication. It looks like they were hired on the same day as the festival because they definitely had zero clue on what they were doing. Good luck if you’re disabled or cannot walk for long periods of time attempting to have some fun.

Darci W.

Must book in advance, but loved it and will be returning this year. Great music, great performers. Recommend NO kids

Sherry H.

We have been going to BVJ for over 25 years. It really is going down hill. The sound quality from the back is horrible. It was better when they had an extra big screen and speakers for us to hear when in the back. The show is almost over before they figure out the sound quality. This year the lineups for he bathrooms were horrible and out of toilet paper by 9 one night. Camping is still fun but again less bathrooms in our area. The Molson Saloon is a great place to go with good quality sound.
Hoping you don't raise the prices for drinks or tickets next year.