VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – The first BEACH IT! country music festival at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront is happening this weekend, but the weather is already causing some headaches days ahead of the inaugural event.
Crews spent the morning Wednesday scrambling to keep rising water back from the event setup on the beach. They are working to make sure the ocean waves don’t damage any equipment.
A Live Nation spokesperson said the Virginia Beach government was helping out with the damage prevention efforts.
A Virginia Beach spokesperson told 10 On Your Side that small sand dunes lined along the beach, berms, were out there as preventative measures to make sure the high tide didn’t reach any of the festival equipment.
Waves were high Wednesday. WAVY Chief Meteorologist Jeff Edmondson said they reached five feet in the morning. But while the weather for the rest of the week will be soggy, WAVY meteorologists said there’s hope for brighter and drier weather for the last two days of the festival.
The day’s bad weather left very few people walking along the boardwalk, however one woman told 10 On Your Side why she was on the damp sand.
“We came in yesterday and we leave tomorrow so rain or shine we were going to the beach. ‘Where’d you come from?’ King George,” said Kim Phillips.
She said her two boys were able to have some fun before the waves got too big.
“When we got in yesterday, they were able to play in the water a little bit before all this rain came in.”
This will be the second time this year we’ve seen bad weather put a damper on a music festival at the Oceanfront. You may recall, Something in the Water had multiple delays and even had to cancel the last day because of high winds and rain. We can only hope we don’t see a case of déjà vu with BEACH IT!
Continue to check WAVY.com for updates.