Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2023 was cancelled midway through its four-day run thanks to extreme weather. Though according to a new report from WDBJ7, there's more to the cancellation.
WDBJ7 reports that stagehands working the festival were walking out on Saturday, September 9 due to poor working conditions. "There was absolutely nothing set in preparation for our arrival," said an anonymous stagehand. "No showers, no toilets, no fencing that was expected to be there, and a lot of it didn’t start showing up until right at dusk." Others claimed that there was only six porta-potties for the 150 workers on site, with one stagehand saying they were "literally living around our own filth, in our own mess that we were trying to keep contained to the trash cans."
WDBJ7 further reports that stagehands presented a list of demands to festival organizers the evening of September 8 at 5pm, saying conditions need to be improved or a strike would happen. Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2023 was cancelled one day after on September 9.
Electric Callboy tour manager TankTheTech published his own account of Blue Ridge Rock Festival in a lengthy YouTube video, and it's pretty bad. TankTheTech touched on everything from lack of food and water to miscommunications and even absent staff. The following is his recounting of walking the grounds, as transcribed by ThePRP.
"I walked the grounds. Dude, I am sorry for any of you that were at ‘Blue Ridge Rock Fest‘. I walked the grounds and what I saw, was like, it was unbelievable. I believe they let in too many people, just from me looking, I would guess that. I saw trash piles about 7 feet tall, all over the festival grounds. Like, they had no sanitation crews taking out garbage.
"From what I understand, from what I was hearing from people that were there, they had nobody cleaning out porta potties. Porta potties were overflowing. There was barely enough water for anybody at the festival.
"There were people just taking spots in the shade wherever they could. This was horrendous. This was absolutely horrendous that people paid their hard-earned money, and traveled from all of the world to go to this festival, and they were treated like scum. It was embarassing for me to see that, how the fans were treated.
"I also understand that they weren't letting people in. People paid extra money to get shuttles from the campgrounds and the parking to the stages, and they were school buses. I don't know how many they had, but definitely not enough to carry the people there. I saw messages from people online that said that they waited online for hours and hours and hours and still never got let into the festival."
TankTheTech also expressed doubt over the weather cancellation, saying "The festival is blaming the weather for the cancelation for everything. Maybe that first day with the storms was what made everything go sideways. So you could maybe say weather was a reason, but it was not the reason. The reason this festival canceled is because it was an utter shitshow from the day it started getting planned. That’s my opinion from what I experienced."
While Blue Ridge Rock Festival has promised refunds after the cancellation, the festival's Reddit is practically bursting at the seams with confusion over how to get their money back.
Blue Ridge Rock Festival organizers have since issued a second statement to sort of address these allegations. "Thank you for your patience during these heartbreaking circumstances," they began. "There is an overabundance of misinformation circulating that we will fully address in due time. We see you, and are working as quickly as possible on our end to take care of you.
"This past weekend's weather cancellation was a collective one, made by the event's emergency management team composed of state and county officials, as well as representatives from the venue.
"We are currently in extensive discussions with our ticketing company and partners. We ask for a bit more of your patience as we work to provide you with resolution."
Some photos of the camp grounds can be found below via attendees, including the horrific conditions during the September 7 storm. It's not great.
