Riot Fest 2023 Tour • Page 7

Speaking of, I heard from people who watched Less than Jake that their set was insanely packed & they probably shouldn't have been on Radical at that time slot

 

It was very packed and they probably should have played a bit later, but their slot would have been fine crowd-wise except for that stupid walkway they put in the center of the Rise and Radicals stages. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like that set up led to significantly denser crowds than there would have been in past years. Plus, it really hampered the ability to form a decent pit which I felt actually led to much denser, slightly more dangerous pits overall.

 

Re: The Arcade

 

Also the fact that they are planning on expanding the arcade kind of alludes that they are planning on staying in the park? Maybe? Or maybe I’m reading too much into that.

Personally I’d rather they address the concerns from the area residents than planning next years fest, even if just a “we hear your concerns and will have updates for you soon” or something that is better than when they held that community meeting earlier this year.

Although to be fair they could be doing both at the same time.

 

Logan Arcade rules. I loved going to Logan Hardware while it was still around too.

 

they're just going to have another "community meeting" in which they fall on their face. they give so much money to the alderman that runs the park, i doubt they'll get kicked out which is really shitty

 

Alderperson elections are coming up in early 2023, but not sure if that member’s seat is safe

 

So kind of interesting here: The current ward map has Douglass split between the 12th and 24th districts, but the new Ward map that takes effect after the next election will have Douglass entirely in the 24th (though the 12th and 25th will directly border it).

The Alderperson for the 24th, Michael Scott Jr, got tapped by the mayor to serve on the Board of Ed, and as a result, his sister, Monique Scott, got appointed to the seat this sumer. Unsure if she is running again, but seems their family has longstanding ties to city politics.

 

They really don't know where they're going to be next year. That's my assumption.

Love Logan Arcade. They've held fundraisers for my animal shelter.

The problem is whether or not the new policy gets passed. Then it'd be up to aldermanic review and it's not quite clear if it would only be the alderman of the area the event is operating in or if it's neighboring as well in the case of Douglass Park.

 

Yeah I'd love to hear the rational behind it. I feel like I read someone (maybe in here) say that it was for safety purposes, but if it caused more crowding I feel like it could be argued it had the opposite impact

 

The only festival stage I can think of that doesn’t include a center walkway for security/production is the bandshell at Grant Park that Lolla uses. It’s arguably better to have a walkway so you have more access to people who are having an emergency. That also means you need to have enough staff on hand to handle that which, from what it seems based on people’s accounts, Riot Fest may not have.

It also doesn’t help that there is only one way to get to one of those two stages so everyone crowds on the side they come in on. The problem with festival layouts is that while a single person may be smart, a herd of people is dumb as bricks.

 

This was another reason I liked last year's stage layout - Riot and Roots both got their own walkways in the middle. Might have helped the MCR situation a little bit.

 

I like to think it would have. I had the worst time trying to get out of the NIN pit and that wasn't even as packed as MCR was.

 

lol

 

Love to hear rap opinions from a guy holding a fish in his Facebook profile picture.

 

Denzel Curry’s cover of Bulls on Parade literally rivals the original in terms of how fucking good it is. The reason I bring that up is that punk and hip hop CAN and DO intersect, and not just in years past, but in present times as well. But no, we need to only book 90s hip hop and as little of it as possible.

Edit: Also see: Turnstile playing hip hop shows and Trash Talk and Odd Future performing together in the past, for a few other examples.

 

The rap sets fucking rule, watching Wu-Tang drunk from a ferris wheel is genuinely one of my favorite moments of my life. Brad's gonna be pissed when he finds out that Aerosmith & Anthrax had songs with rappers 30+ years ago

 

Also to be clear (not that any of you disagree, I just like articulating my thoughts) I’m not saying the fest has to go and start booking a shit ton of hip hop acts or something, just was trying to say that there are current hip hop acts who feel like they would fit in well at a punk leaning alternative festival, and booking some of them every year or every few years would be nice.

 

Oh for sure. Even Lupe's set last year was a 15 year album play...

 

Denzel returning next year would be awesome

 

Has emo rap had it's moment enough to fall in popularity & be something they'd pursue?

 

I would definitely argue it had the opposite impact. Even the way they did the Ultimate viewing area on Roots seemed to me to be counterproductive since it created a sort of artificially dense crowd behind it. If you went to the far left and around, the area directly in front of the stage was less crowded, sure, but the area directly behind the Ultimate area was very tightly packed in. If nothing else, it made traversing the park more difficult.

The thing I don't get about this is that there was no walkway in the direct center of Roots or Riot. The walkways were off to the side of the crowd, which allowed the packing in and large pits to form only for the main stages where I'd expect them to be inherently more dangerous than at Rise or Radicals. Also, there was no center walkway at Rebel (not that I think there should have been), and the videos I saw from Madball and GWAR looked a lot more intense than what LTJ or Menzingers would have (probably) looked like without that center walkway.

Safe to say I was not a fan of the new Rise/Radicals setup. Sorry, I just needed to vent lol

 

the stage layout discussion i think is dammed if you do damned if you dont. no one layout is perfect, and each style has pros and also cons: a way for it to be dangerous/bad for navigating/ bad for moshing/ect... and if there was one that would have been perfect for the MCR situation to avert the crushing, then itd probably be 'bad' in some other way for other acts in the weekend. like if the riot stage had the center line like rise and radical, then wouldnt everyone just be saying the same thing about how no bands like 7 seconds, bad religion or misfits could get good pits going because of the center rail? but yea safety is obviously more important than mosh pit viability.

i dunno i think the culprit of the mcr debacle was 1) if riot did knowingly oversell and/or what they truly thought was going to happen and 2) the seemingly huge quantity of inexperienced at festivals /overly determined to be front MCRheads. and 3rd) the 2 year delay in what was already one of the most hyped concert in recent memory just had people in a tizzy leading up to it. really wish i coulda been a fly on the wall in those planning meetings and how deeply they really looked at how that day would go... all that to say i just dont think a different layout would have been thaaat different of a result when its still tens of thousands of people all competing for a 'good spot'

very curious to see how other MCR festival shows pan out where its all GA /first come first serve instead of limited GA arena floors + seated tickets. Y think WWWY and aftershock are scrambling right now to figure out how to not 'pull a riotfest" or are they going 'those fuckin riotfest amateurs'?

 

i really can't get behind the people blaming mcr fans for what happened. just assuming they're all inexperienced teenage girls, which i've seen a ton of online since friday, just rubs me the wrong way.

 

not full on blaming MCR fans (nor am i blaming just women, i definitely didnt say that so dont attribute that to anything in my take..), but its an ingredient to the cocktail that has to be acknowledged. fans are the ones doing the actual crushing, not riotfest,. whether its over zealousness, assholishness, lack of experience, or not taking care of themselves by drinking enough water on a hot day, the ticket buyers have agency in the situation to