Music fans in Haines Junction will be singing the blues instead of listening to bluegrass next summer as organizers of the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival have decided to relocate the weekend-long music event to Whitehorse.

While the popular festival's attendance was outgrowing its primary venue – Haines Junction's St. Elias Convention Centre – a struggle between festival organizers and the village council ended any chance the bluegrass affair would remain in the Alaska Highway community.

"You might call the parking bylaw kind of a last straw,” Harvey Jessup, a festival organizer, told the Star.

Back in May, Haines Junction village council voted to prohibit the overnight parking on municipal property that includes the parking lot of the 270-seat convention centre.

Caroline Hayes, who co-founded the festival with her husband, Bob, said the ability to park RVs at the festival site made it easy for volunteers, older fans and performers.

"People who come want to be together and play music; it's very relaxed and communal. That's what we were asking for is one weekend of the year,” said Caroline, adding that dealing with the village council on the matter over the past year wore her and Bob down.

"It was heartening that local people did come forward when they heard about this (bylaw) and offered their yards for people to camp in,” she said.

Mayor George Nassiopoulos defended the bylaw enacted for health and safety reasons and because of concerns from RV park owners who felt they were losing business.

"(Last year) we sent a letter to bluegrass organizers requesting that they ask their patrons to use the RV parks,” Nassiopoulos said. " There was the perception they were competing with local RV parks.”

A year of e-mail correspondence between the village and festival organizers continued; however, the two groups could not find any common ground.

In an attempt to accommodate the festival for 2010 without encroaching on local RV camp business, Nassiopoulos made an exception to the new bylaw and offered 10 convention centre parking spots for overnight use, which he believed was more than adequate.

The festival had requested 30.

Richard Mazur, who owns the Kluane RV Kampground, said free parking around the village, not only during the festival, was costing him revenue, so he lobbied for the bylaw.

"These people can afford to pay to park, they don't need to park for free, and it's the total overall picture of free parking in the community,” Mazur said.

Asked about the convenience of his campground, located five kilometres away from the festival site, Mazur thought it a non-issue.

"They've all got wheels, don't they?” he said, adding many RVs that come to the festival are piloted by "self-contained people ... (who) bought all their stuff in Whitehorse.”

According to Hayes and Jessup, most festival patrons and volunteers are from Whitehorse, but Haines Junction's beauty and the local people who benefited from the annual arrival of 300-plus bluegrass fans made moving it a difficult decision.

"It's a weekend in the summer that's important to a lot of people, so we worked really, really hard to try and keep it there,” Hayes said.

Madley's General Store is one Haines Junction business whose sales spiked during the festival.

And owner Terry Madley questioned how local RV parks are going to win over more campers now that the festival is moving to Whitehorse.

"Its surely going to be missed and it's definitely an economy (booster) for the town. It's really the only event that Haines (Junction) does during the year,” Madley said, describing patrons of the festival as a "good group who never caused any trouble.”

"If (Mazur) loses business because of the festival, he's going to lose a lot more business now,” he added.

Currently, the festival is in talks with the Yukon Arts Centre to hold the ninth annual festival (2011) at the 400-plus seat venue.

"We had something fairly special in the Junction, no question,” said Jessup. "And if we come to Whitehorse, we're definitely going to change the look of the festival, but we're working with the arts centre and (Yukon) college to see how we can accommodate it.”