THE RAIN ON OUR PARADE
An open letter to the d-bags at House of Blues regarding their crappy-ass festival at the Gorge in Washington State.
Dearest House of Blues,
We have a good mind to contact our lawyers and sue you for violation of freedom of speech rights, but we’re bigger people than that. Instead we will exercise our right to freedom of speech with this open letter proclaiming what shysters you are.
We here at PHETASY have become experts on festivals. Not only have we seen who has the best venues, we’ve also seen who’s the most organized, who stays on top of emptying the port-o-potties, and who allows people to enjoy the festival and doesn’t turn it into a Gestapo experience.
First of all, I don’t even think you came close to following the laws of sanitation at your precious little show. Overflowing port-o-potties are not cool dudes-in-the-suits.
Secondly, what do you mean you can’t go back and forth between the campground and the show? Once you enter the show you can’t leave? That’s the biggest bunch of fucking garbage we have ever heard in our life. Especially since you are charging $40/day for camping on top of the $60/day for the tickets. When people attend these festivals and pay to camp, it’s is part of the experience. Yes, we understand that you want the patrons to stay on the music grounds and pay a RIDICULOUS $8/beer and reach even further into their already strained pockets to line your own, but GIVE US LITTLE GUYS A FUCKING BREAK. Make the people who are coming for the day pay the beer prices and let the rest of us drink the stuff we brought in.
Guess how much camping was at Coachella? $30 for all three days. And guess what it is at Bonnaroo for what amounts to a FOUR-DAY FESTIVAL? $184.00 for the entire festival, including camping. This makes you the most expensive festival of the summer with the least impressive line-up and the most annoying rules and regulations. Congratulations, we’re sure you’ll rock the badge with pride.
And finally, when we got processed for selling our Support Global Cooling shirts (and we concede that we were in the wrong on the whole illegal vending thing) they went so far as to tell us that we couldn’t even promote our website on the campgrounds. Excuse me? Since when did talking about what you did for a living become illegal? Your hired thugs not only took our t-shirts, but also took our model releases and our email list. Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? And I’m pretty sure that’s a violation of our rights under the First Amendment. People promote everything at these festivals. THAT’S WHY THEY GO.
Frankly, the only thing you really had going for your festival was the gorgeous venue, and that has nothing at all to do with you. We can thank Mother Nature for that. And so, because of the ridiculous treatment we received and we witnessed others receiving at the festival, we are forever boycotting Sasquatch until you concede to three things:
1) Loosen up your “if-you-leave-you-can’t-come-back” mentality and realize that it’s a music festival, not a high school dance
2) Open your hearts and your wallets and realize you are already making shitloads upon shitloads of money off these people--you don’t need to rape them of every penny they have.
3) Stop hiring meth-addicted, power-tripping d-bags hell bent on enforcing your ridiculous rules.
I hope you take these suggestions into consideration, because believe us, there were a lot of unhappy campers this year.
Sincerely,
Bridget
The one-person staff at PHETASY.
Article Series
This article is part 3 of a 3 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
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Sasquatch 2006 - Day 1: Livin' the Dream
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Sasquatch 2006 - Day 2: Processed
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THE RAIN ON OUR PARADE
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