Friday, December 19, 2014

The Ill-Fated Public Safety Festival of '05

I only attended this disaster because my husband was running sound for it. The promoters predicted 20,000 people would attend out at a park in the East End. It was co-billed as a Pep Rally for Richmond, and there was no beer. The reality was there were five friends for each band.

At the height of the afternoon, Funksion, which had come from Virginia Beach for this event, played to just me. Just me! The band Think was the headliner on the main stage, and there were less than a dozen people even for them. The single food truck and the police left at 5 p.m., and Think started playing before Ominotago, on the second stage, finished, so you had two bands playing at the time time to a open field of no one. The organizers must have been crazy to think they were going to attract a white jam band crowd to an event in the far East End without beer.

There had been a small gathering earlier in the day for a high school marching band performance and some BMX racing, and then everyone left. The Times-Dispatch, which covered the event, just quoted public officials about how good these events were for the community, without mentioning that the community didn't come.

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