News traveled fast when the Furthur concert slated for July 5 at Shelburne Museum was cancelled last week. The performance was to be part of the annual Ben and Jerry's Concerts on the Green series put on by Higher Ground.

Leslie Wright, marketing and public relations manager of Shelburne Museum, had no comment when contacted Friday afternoon concerning the concert's cancellation. Later that afternoon, Shelburne Museum issued a press release that stated, in part, "We regret that the July 5 Furthur concert at Shelburne Museum had to be canceled. We could not host this show without an adequate security plan from the concert's organizers in place. We did not have that and so made the difficult decision to withdraw as the concert's venue."

According to a press release issued by Higher Ground, Shelburne Museum notified them on Thursday morning, June 24, that it was withdrawing as the concert's host and planned to seek cancellation of the State Public Assembly Permit. The press release went on to explain that this had followed several weeks of preparatory work with representatives from Shelburne Museum, local and state police, as well as with Town officials in an effort to arrange adequate plans for concert security and parking.

Shelburne Police Chief Jim Warden also was involved in organizing the security efforts for the event.

"My role was to supply information and feedback to the parties involved," Warden explained when contacted Tuesday afternoon for this story. He went on to say that the concerts scheduled for the Shelburne Museum venue typically require three police officers to maintain safe standards for concert-goers, plus some additional patrols for traffic leaving the site following the concerts' conclusion. But feedback indicated this concert was going to be different. Warden stated that he'd received reports from other Furthur concerts that had caused concern. "Those sites all had huge issues with ‘gate crashers,' so while we have a history of being able to deal with concert crowds of around 3,000 at Shelburne Museum, there was a good chance that there would be an additional 3,000 to 5,000 people showing up who didn't have tickets. There was no way we could handle that - the massive traffic jam alone would completely block the Route 7 corridor," Warden said.

Warden contacted police departments in Burlington, South Burlington, the sheriff's department, and the state police for assistance. "Bottom line, those departments had no extra people available to assist. Part of the reason was due to it being a holiday weekend. South Burlington's corrections facility offered us holding facilities, but we wouldn't have the manpower available to transport offenders there." Warden had seven police scheduled for concert coverage. "I didn't want this to turn into ‘Custer's Last Stand.' When I found out that other area departments weren't able to assist, I turned it back to the Museum and Higher Ground's service agencies." Warden estimated that he made his position known to those parties at a meeting held June 15.

"The sad thing is, we know we could handle an average sized crowd of ticket holders, and we were prepared for possible issues with drugs and drinking. We could handle that. But the arrival of again as many attendees showing up without tickets, coming in early and trying to crash the gate? I told them ‘we will do the best we can, but we can't handle an influx of thousands of people showing up without tickets."