Olympic Island

This is probably the worst venue in the city.
The good:
You have just taken a lovely ferry ride to whatever outdoor concert you are attending. You get into the venue and admire the beautiful surroundings live music in the distance as you sit and take in some sunshine and ease your way into the outdoor concert experience. The band you went to see goes on they were awesome and heres where the great stuff ends.
The Bad:
Leaving this venue is possibly the worst thing ever. I’d even rather leave sound academy at 3am in the middle of February in –40c without cab money and hoof it to Union to catch the vommit comet.
If you really love the band make sure you leave during the encore. I’ve been to 4+ Island concerts and I learned the first one (Arcade Fire + BSS 5 years ago) that leaving after its over means waiting 2 hours for a ferry back to the main land. I learned the next year when I saw BSS, Bloc Party and Feist. We left during the encore (with many other people in the know) and had no issue leaving. I did that again the following year however I just went to the Arcade Fire show on the weekend with my boyfriend whos an olympic island concert virgin and I told him WE NEED TO LEAVE DURING THE ENCORE or else we wait for the ferry forever. He thought because I had seen AF the previous 2 weeks that I was just being a baby so he made me stay til the very last note of Wake Up then proceeded to drunkenly dick around getting his backpack causing us to loose precious minutes in the ferry line. Well we got effed. The two ferries left full without us and I said to him now it will be 45 min until one comes. 45 min later hes in a huff about how long it takes to leave and I got to do the «I told you so» chick thing. Thanks for that olympic coz I never get to do that so props.
The other bad thing is that they use to let you take in food. And now this has changed. Sorry I don’t wanna eat what ur selling for $ 8+ and $ 3+ for a pop. I read a mountain of food was wasted at the BSS Pavement show in June. Tsk tsk. I would have eaten my lunch and then went in.
This time my bf and I were pre drinking in the park outside olympic before going in and we had a backpack. We hid our beers in the bushes to come pick up on the way home and went in the show. (we abandoned the beers coz we didnt leave during the encore and didnt want to wait for 2 hours to pick up 3 pabst) We were really mad when they checked our backpack and didnt check it at all so we could have brought those 3 pabst in with us.
Pack your backpack full. They wont empty it in a search so take your own booze and avoid the beer garden line up. you didnt hear this from me. um someone hacked my Unilocal to post this.
To avoid all this hassle I suggest going to Montréal to the Osheaga festival. They run around selling beer and shooters to you and theres no insane lines to get there or leave.
Olympic Island can’t help the transportation issue (since its an island and accessable only by boat), or the beer issue (because of the ontario liquer laws which are redonkulous), but I imagine they could let us bring in our own food.

Just sit right back
And you’ll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin’ man,
The Skipper brave and sure,
Five passengers set sail that day,
For a three hour tour… A THREE-​HOUR TOUR!
My issue with Olympic Island it that getting on and specifically getting off the island is a nightmare! Essentially it’s a minimum 30-​minute wait time just to get on the ferry. Feel free to add 15 minutes for every minute you stay in the crowd during the encore; I hope as hell it’s worth it!
At Virgin fest two years ago I waited 90 minutes to get on the ferry and we left 5 songs within Smashing Pumpkins’ (disgraceful) performance! During Death Cab for Cutie it was even worse with wait times exceeding 2 hour, luckily we were able to get a water taxi for $ 10 each. Last weekend I learned my lesson and during the Arcade Fire show we left right as they finished the encore and only waited 20 minutes.
Things aren’t all bad for Olympic Island. As an outdoor venue, Olympic island far surpasses the crap that is the Molson Amphitheatre and can accommodate more people than Harbour Front Centre or Nathan Phillip Square. The sound is good, it gets great acts and it generally isn’t too expensive.
The food used to cater on the island varies greatly from show to show ranging from big corporate chains like Pizza Pizza to local Toronto eateries like Caplansky’s and Urban Herbivor.