At $85 for a weekend pass, $35 for a one-day pass, $6 for a beer and no outside lunch allowed, Center of Gravity can easily drain a wallet. But that didn‘t stop several hundred people from pouring into Kelowna‘s City Park for the first day of the sports and music festival. Most of the crowd was in the same age range as the wakeboard and dirt bike athletes - 20 to 30 - and dressed for the beach. "We came here because it‘s better than being in Westbank," said Danny Kneller, who came from the Westside with several friends. "We like the milk games," he said, referring to games and a bungee slide set up by the BC Dairy Foundation, "and all the free stuff you get." "Free water!" his friends chimed in. "Free sunglasses! Free beads! Free NOS (energy drink)! We‘re going to drink so much NOS." The Center of Gravity main stage and the BlackBerry Beach Stage are scheduled to be filled with concerts all weekend. The first two bands on the beach stage performed to a nearly empty mosh pit inside one of the beer gardens. "I‘m not too thrilled with that setup," said a guard who was checking the identification of those who entered. But, as the afternoon wore on and the sun got hotter, the beer garden began to fill up. The bikini contest semifinals were held on the beach stage in front of a whistling, whooping, mostly male crowd. Twenty-three young women paraded across the stage - a few walked on their hands - in front of the crowd and a panel of judges. "In the bikini contest, we‘re looking for a fit body and a great personality," event operator Scott Emsle said before the event. Jeneya Clarke of Peachland was competing in a bikini contest for the first time. She said she decided to enter because "you only live once." "It was awesome," Clarke said. Maddi Kempf of Penticton had done modelling contests before. "It‘s always a lot of fun," she said. "I like being on stage." Kempf, along with Breanne Rowen of Kelowna, found herself among the top 10 women who are going to the bikini finals at 3 p.m. today. "I‘m leaving for Toronto soon, so I thought I may as well try it," said Rowen, 20. "It‘s kind of nerve-wracking, but you just have to do it." Not everyone came for the bikini contest. Many showed up to watch the wakeboarding. The wakeboarding event features riders on snowboard-like boards, pulled along by a personal watercraft as they balance and turn tricks using obstacles set up in the water. "We came to see the music, the dirt biking, the bike jumping and the wakeboarding," said Antonio Montana, himself an avid wakeboarder. Sean Varnel of Kelowna said he came for the dirt bike events and for the wakeboarding as well, but felt something was missing. "We want Wakefest back," he said, referring to the summer wakeboarding festival that was held in Kelowna for several years until city council cancelled it after the 2007 event. "This does not compare." "We came because they don‘t have Wakefest," said Varnel‘s friend Jason Martin. However, Martin acknowledged he was looking forward to seeing world-renowned hip-hop act Naughty By Nature, who perform at 8:30 p.m. tonight on the main stage. Sports fans will get their fill today when the Canadian Jet Ski championships launch on Okanagan Lake. Volleyball and basketball tournaments will go all day, and the freestyle mountain bike and motocross events will get underway in the Dirt Zone. Concerts include Devon, Bucknife and the Malibu Knights on the BlackBerry Beach Stage and Cain, Invizible, Karl Wolf and headliners Naughty by Nature on the Sun FM main stage. For a full schedule, go to www.centerofgravity.ca/schedule.php. Top of Page
