A battle over a proposed music festival on Hawai‘i Island will come to a head Thursday, May 14.
Each year since 2023, Andrew Tepper, a landowner in Pāpa‘ikou on the windward side of Hawai‘i Island held a multi-day music festival called “Falls on Fire” modeled after the annual “Burning Man” festival in Nevada. Tepper’s festival attracted hundreds of attendees to camp on his land for several days, despite the event not having the proper permits from the county.
In order to keep hosting the event, Tepper — more specifically, his company Teppy Mountain LLC — was required to secure a special permit from the county’s Windward Planning Commission. He applied for such a permit last year, requesting that he be allowed to host a four-day festival with up to 500 attendees on 14 acres of a greater 1,400-acre parcel.
The application has also requested approval from the commission to be allowed to continue to store several commercial vehicles used to haul gravel on the property, about which the county Planning Department had previously issued a warning to Tepper. Planning Department documents repeatedly refer to that vehicle storage area as a “heavy equipment rental base yard,” a non-agricultural commercial use on agricultural land, which requires a special permit.
However, some of Tepper’s neighbors requested a contested case hearing on the matter, citing complaints of excessive noise and potential impacts to local roads.
That hearing, which took place in November, ultimately came out in favor of Tepper: a hearing officer concluded that the permit should be granted, albeit with certain conditions such as requiring Tepper to develop a traffic management plan and to host all festival-related parking on his property.
On Thursday, the Planning Commission will hold a special meeting to determine whether to adopt the hearing officer’s recommendations and conditions.
But those conditions are too restrictive, Teppy Mountain has argued. For example, the hearing officer recommended that all amplified music must cease by 9 p.m., and that Tepper be responsible for building traffic passing areas on Indian Tree Road, the small private road connecting the property to State Highway 19.
Regarding the music, Teppy Mountain has argued that the 9 p.m. cutoff is too stringent than necessary. At the 2025 festival, all speakers faced inland toward the remainder of the uninhabited 1,400-acre parcel, claimed a letter by Teppy Mountain to the Planning Commission.
At the contested case hearing, one of the opponents of the festival said the noise during the 2025 festival “wasn’t too bothersome this year.”
Instead, Teppy Mountain proposed placing noise monitoring stations along the property line to ensure that the sound level doesn’t exceed a certain level.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s meeting already seems poised to generate fireworks. Several Pāpa‘ikou residents — including some involved in the contested case — have submitted testimony in advance of the meeting urging that the Planning Commission reject Tepper’s application.
“The scale and intensity of access required for "Falls on Fire" — large gatherings, peak traffic surges, and reliance by emergency responders — also effectively transforms this private easement into a de facto public access route without corresponding public governance or enforceable standards,” wrote Jim McMahon, one of Tepper’s neighbors who requested the contested case hearing, in a lengthy letter to the Planning Commission.
“Events modeled after large mainland festival culture are more appropriate in locations specifically designed with the infrastructure, emergency access, transportation systems, and zoning necessary to support them without negatively impacting residential communities and culturally sensitive lands,” read another letter by Tanya Kauhi.
The special meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday in Hilo.
Aloha State Daily requested comment from Tepper and his legal counsel.
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