Riot Fest 2022 (September 16-18, Chicago IL) Festival • Page 169

We just need to list every possible conflict and say that we know we won’t be able to see all of them. Then we can figure out the schedule!

 

”Actually, I’m traveling to the fest from the Moon so I have some serious concerns about potential conflicts between these 19 bands…”

 

Pat from The Maine just teased an aftershow. Probably coming next week the way he talked about it.

 

So, Im seeing Coheed and Cambria with Alkaline Trio and Mothica. I was curious and went to Mothica Instagram profile and she says she is playing Riot Fest on September 18th but she is not in the poster as far as I can tell.

So probably there will be a couple of more bands added?

 

So, she did a M&G at her merch booth and I asked her about it, she said she announced it today. I wonder why she wasnt announced on the 2nd wave with the rest of the bands

 

Yeah that’s really weird. I’d say it was a radius thing, but… Alkaline Trio…

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same, although AK3 was a replacement on the tour, after Coheed dropped Dance Gavin Dance from it.

Also, not sure an opening act the size of Mothica will affect on announcing them on the lineup the same way they were waiting for Taking Back Sunday

 

Thinking this week or next for aftershows then 2 weeks after that for schedule.

 

Would be great to get them this week!

I'm so curious if they'll have anything super-duper-late on Friday in particular. MCR is really the only headliner of the three that I can't see myself leaving early (or potentially even skipping).

Probably no chance that they'd add a Thursday event this late right?

 

Are we still thinking they are announcing something big? Did that announcement come and I missed it? Last I saw it said in the coming weeks but man we are damn near at festival time now.

 

the website still says “…some special events for 2022…” but I’m not sure if that’s referencing what they meant about a big announcement.

 

So that guy they sent to the community meeting was the absolute wrong person to send. that disaster of a meeting happened a week ago and the article didn’t get published til the 4th but seems like just yesterday it started picking up steam.. the twitter hasn’t posted or even retweeted anything since the 4th, almost feels like they know they bungled that and are laying low hoping it blows over. Feels like they should get ahead of it instead and apologize, eat some humble pie and try a redo.

 

wait what meeting

 

In case anyone missed it because I'm just reading about this for the first time now:
https://chicagoreader.com/news-poli...sidents-worried-about-the-fate-of-their-park/

 

Holy cow that was rough. Makes me not wanna go, actually.

 

Purely anecdotal but I’m looking at comments in every area I can find and in the riot fest related places it’s posted, the community of riot attendees are pretty disappointed/upset with riot for this (rightfully so) but when I go looking in the Chicago/neighborhood based pages it’s posted in the responses seem to be generally be “that guy is a dick but when you live in a city events will happen in the city, who cares” or ‘these events bring us tons of money why are people so bothered’.

So while yes riot needs to be a better partner (and never let that fuckin guy be community facing ever again) but I also think this could be a really small but vocal group of people and aren’t truly speaking for the ‘local community’ as a whole as many seem to not mind it.. but again based just off some social media reactions

 

definitely not a good look, and i wouldn't hire that guy for anything again. but ultimately the only opinion that matters there is the local community's

 

Yeah, that's my read on it too. It's a small but very vocal minority who are upset about it from what I've seen on Twitter, in comment sections, etc. But that doesn't mean the arguments aren't valid or that more people "IRL" aren't upset. Social media is a decent indicator but it's not the indicator. I also wonder how much of the negative this year is influenced by the presence of the other two festivals which is something I'm not sure speaking to any of the individual festivals about would help, TBH. Saying "find a new location" for an entity that wants to exist is an easy thing to suggest in practice but an impossibly challenging thing to put into practice.

But yeah, that was a huge fuck-up on Riot's part. Never should have outsourced it, should have been prepared with answers for the obvious questions that would come up, etc. Those questions were all relatively easy to answer too. Maybe not in a way that would have fully satisfied folks, but in such a way that people could have at least felt heard.

Kinda hope they admit that one meeting went sideways and host another at a time after 5pm. Riot handling it themselves (maybe even Riot Mike specifically) without that outside party. I don't fully buy the "people didn't know about it" thing if folks were sent flyers in the mail but... A 12:30pm Tuesday meeting would make it hard for a lot of people to attend, regardless of their job. And have fucking interpreters. I think that's the part that made me the angriest in reading that...

 

Also: Just looking at that guy's picture made me want to vomit. He looks like a meme for cargo shorts.

 

Yeah, everything else aside, not having interpreters and Riot Mike (otherwise the public face of the festival) not being there are particularly not good.

 

I really appreciate everyone's insight on this!
I'm short on spoons lately and am glad to see thoughtful stuff in this thread all the time.

 

What happened in that meeting makes me think that if they were supposed to release the schedule and aftershows this week they probably won't until the situation comes down a bit.

 

The most frustrating bit about things like this, for me, is how easy it is to address them. I really hate the "lay low and let it blow over" mentality. Especially given how easy some of these things would be to address in a diplomatic way.

I'm not saying Riot should sit there and just say like, "Yeah, we hear you - we're leaving the neighborhood!" But there's ways to talk about these things to address some concerns and maybe give people suggestions for what they can do if they want to enact change. Hand attendees a flyer with contact info for local reps who allow the festival to go on (a bit risky, sure, but would show confidence and build goodwill).

EDIT: And if they are holding the aftershows and schedules until this "blows over," I'm not sure that's the best strategy. I think announcing the schedule and/or aftershows would wash this away pretty quick in terms of Google search results, etc. So I dunno what's going on. Hah.

 

pleeease today.
or tomorrow.

or yesterday.