The 16th annual Hamilton Park Music Festival occurred this year on October 3rd. It featured live music, face painting, pony rides, a petting zoo, festival food and drinks, and local vendors, and it was free to the public. The festival was bustling with families listening to music and partaking in activities.
On the music side of things, some local music artists including The Jersey Rollers, Naji Soul, Chill Town, Screenager, Sean Kiely, and others performed right in front of Hamilton Park. You could tell these artists put a lot of soul and effort into their performances, and the music added a lively atmosphere to the festival. I quite enjoyed them, but I wasn't there for most of the bands (I think I only saw The Jersey Rollers).
I did not partake in the good-looking food and drinks, nor the face painting, but one thing I did see was the petting zoo and the pony rides. I care a lot for animals, and although I don't have any formal complaints, I do feel like they could have had a better environment. The petting zoo featured animals like goats, sheep, pigs, and even a calf and a llama (or alpaca, I could not tell). Most of these animals actually have very sensitive hearing — sheep can actually hear up to 42 kHz, compared to humans' upper limit of 20 kHz — and I feel that subjecting them to a noisy music festival from noon to 8pm wasn't the best decision that could have been made (even though they were a good distance away from the speakers, you could still barely hear the voices of others over the music). I think that the best solution would be to save the petting zoo and pony rides for a more chill festival rather than a lively and festive music festival. In addition, there was only one pony and it was forced to carry all those children and walk along a short and somewhat narrow path in the park, again, from noon to 8pm, and most horse trainers agree that ponies should only work for 2-3 hours with breaks! Again, I wasn't there for most of it, so I don't know if there were actually multiple ponies working in shifts or something like that, but I felt bad for the pony(ies?).
Aside from that, the festival was nice and I quite liked the festivities. Many people brought their dogs (probably not good to have around petting zoo animals), and I found joy in watching them enjoy the music with their owners. It was nice to see the dog-owner bond in action, even in a lively and bustling festival such as this year's Hamilton Park Music Festival. In conclusion, although I have some complaints about the petting zoo and pony rides, this year's Hamilton Park Music Festival was great, and I eagerly await next year's.