Kayla Boisvert was last seen at the festival on Monday, July 27 around 2:15 a.m.
Kayla Boisvert, a 28-year-old woman from Ontario, was last seen at the festival before vanishing sometime after 1am Monday, according to friends and police.
She was reported missing on July 28.
Her friend, Ming Liu, offered a timeline in a series of social media posts that began circulating roughly 24 hours after her disappearance, saying the two had been together for the start of a DJ set by Kai Wachi at the festival’s Pagoda stage at 12:15am Monday.
Liu detailed the group’s movements at the Shambhala Music Festival through his posts.
According to Liu’s account, the group later moved to the four-day festival’s Village stage for a performance by Ganja White Night at around 1am.
The exact moment of separation remained unclear.
It was not clear from the post exactly when Boisvert became separated from her friends.
But Liu knew she had contacted him after midnight.
Liu says the last text he received from Boisvert was at 3 am.
By the time official appeals went out, multiple people had already spotted her.
Liu’s appeals have already spread significantly over social media and multiple people have reported interactions with Boisvert around when she was last seen, but she has not been found.
Police released detailed descriptions to aid the search.
Boisvert is described as 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) tall with black hair with long blonde braids and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue head scarf, oversize graphic T-shirt and multicoloured scarves.
Liu’s follow-up posts added physical details.
Liu added that Boisvert is of Jamaican descent and weighs between 160 and 170 pounds.
According to Liu, the red panda design on her shirt was distinctive.
She was last seen wearing a blue head scarf, several multicolored scarves, an oversized graphic t-shirt with a design of a red panda, and a Champion fanny pack.
The Shambhala Music Festival team moved quickly to coordinate with authorities.
Shambhala’s organizers announced on Tuesday that they have joined the search for Boisvert.
They posted a statement to Facebook addressing the community.
“We appreciate the concern, support, and offers of assistance we have received from our community,” reads a statement posted to the festival’s Facebook. “Our team is working closely with the RCMP and all responding public safety agencies and continues to provide every assistance available to support the ongoing search.”
In the viral moment now spreading across social media and news outlets, friends of Boisvert turned to digital platforms to mobilize the search after she vanished in the pre-dawn hours at the electronic music festival.
He explains that Boisvert was with their group for the beginning of Kai Wachi’s set at the Pagoda stage at 12:15 am Monday before they made their way to the Village stage for Ganja White Night around 1 am.
The timeline was Liu’s account of their evening together as a group, but somewhere between those performances and the hours after, Boisvert disappeared.
Liu says the last text he received from Boisvert was at 3 am.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Kayla Boisvert is urged to contact Salmo RCMP at 250-357-2212.