![]() With people still left stranded outside the gates, sound camps and late-night stages such as The Drop BK, Nightchaser, Rapture-Pewpew, and Therefore Records continued to remind fans why they were there. No words needed to be said to see the toll that the day’s events had taken on their physical and mental health. Still, it was difficult to fully enjoy and soak in that post-performance bliss with the faces of stressed and worn-out attendees who were just getting into the festival walking by. Finally, Bob Moses closed things off at the Air Stage with a provocative performance which began to make everyone feel that things might just be alright. High-caliber pyrotechnics, immaculate stage design, and a powerful sound system were everything that those lucky enough to get in needed to get the vibes going again. Griz closed out the Fire Stage in an absolutely ravishing fashion, and fans were given their first taste of the scale of production that the weekend was to provide. Next up was Rusko who provided an hour full of floor scrubbing drum and bass. Promoters were able to produce CHEE to replace Esseks, who provided a stunning set full of live edits and unreleased tunes at the Earth Stage around 10 PM. ![]() ![]() The bottleneck continued into Friday night and the early morning as fans trickled into the venue. And to make matters worse, Esseks and Supertask suddenly canceled their Friday afternoon sets due to COVID complications. The elements from Hurricane Ida had flooded one of the lots and a large portion of GA camping, so event staff, and pretty much everyone arriving, were left scrambling. Three hours turned into five, five turned into nine, and for some attendees, nine even turned into 16 hours waiting either at the gate, in traffic, or stranded in a muddy parking lot. A festival attendee venting his frustrations with staff at one of the hellish parking lots – Photo by Julie P. But as Friday morning came around, a very serious issue became quite clear – attendees couldn’t get into the festival. Thursday night went off without a hitch, featuring a pre-party for early-arrival attendees with the likes of Yheti, Walker & Royce, Diceman, and Keenan, to name a few. We worked early into the morning setting up Smooth Canoe’s TV wall and as the sun came up, Lavi campgrounds continued to transform from a Jewish summer camp into a mystical wonderland. We arrived around 2:30 AM Wednesday morning at the Theater Stage as The Drop BK was putting the finishing touches on their Hennessy sound system – a heavy-hitting setup that was to provide the late-night entertainment for the weekend. I joined Smooth Canoe Visuals, a duo of analog visual artists, on the trek to Lakewood, PA to see the events unfold. In the wake of the Bonnaroo 2021 cancellation, Elements Festival in Lakewood, Pennsylvania stated that their Labor Day Weekend events were still set to go down. A representative for festival’s organizers told Billboard they had not yet been served with the lawsuit, but that “thousands of people enjoyed the festival, and we are looking forward to 2022.This story begins with a renovated church van loaded with 30+ box televisions driving through a hurricane. “All of this combined with the lack of basic amenities for attendees created an uncomfortable and dangerous situation.”Īs defendants, the lawsuit named companies Elements Production LLC, BangOn!NYC, and Tested Contained Retreats LLC, as well as individual co-founders Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz. “Defendants had essentially ignored Hurricane Ida’s arrival in the area, did not provide adequate staffing for the musical festival, did not properly screen attendees for COVID-19, had insufficient food and water supplies, the lodging was not as advertised,” attorneys for the fans wrote. In addition to failures to plan around the weather, the lawsuit cited key failures around COVID-19 safety protocols, as well as a failure to provide enough water to fans who were not allowed to bring much of their own. They admitted they “should have communicated these challenges earlier and better” and promised “to do better” at the 2022 event.īut Tuesday’s lawsuit said the problems went far beyond a simple weather snafu. In a statement issued after the event, the festival’s planners have apologized for the problems and largely attributed them to Hurricane Ida, which brought extreme rainfall to the area in the days before the event and forced last-minute changes. “Elements Festival was a completely disorganized mess, and did not offer the experience Defendants had advertised, which became apparent immediately upon the attendees’ arrival,” attorneys for the concertgoers wrote.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |