Firefly Music Festival begins Thursday, and campers start arriving Wednesday.
Drivers should anticipate some delays between Wednesday and Monday in the Dover area. It’s DelDOT’s tenth year navigating people through town, and they’ve improved management each year.
DelDOT spokesperson C.R. McLeod says Leipsic Road will be closed, but access to local businesses will not be blocked. Thursday afternoon will be the busiest time.
“The festival organizers have been very receptive to feedback," McLeod said. "We’ve done some changes especially at the entrance lots to make that process move quickly. What we’re trying to avoid is those long queues of traffic that then wind out, especially on to Route 13. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of managing that here over the last couple of years and we want to keep that going also.”
Firefly typically ends after midnight each night, so crowds leaving won’t affect daily peak traffic hours.
“We are not expecting any major issues on Route 1 or Route 13 for example," McLeod said. "And again we just want to encourage, especially those in the local community, that they don’t have to avoid going out to their local businesses or restaurants because they think its going to be so crowded or traffic is going to be so bad.”
Additionally, there are no school changes this year due to the festival. In 2021, Capital went virtual the first two weekdays of the festival, and Caesar Rodney scheduled an in-service day Friday for similar reasons.
McLeod notes after festival-goers leave, Code Purple will roll in on Monday morning to clean up the festival-grounds and collect any safely reusable items like tents, cases of water, and chairs that were left behind.
