A hitch in FloydFest’s giddy-up — long parking lot waits for Sunday-only ticket holders
About two months from now, the major domos at FloydFest will get together, post-decompression, and figure out what went right and wrong at No. 11. The wait allows them time to receive feedback from the thousands who have been here this weekend. And while most of the feedback probably will be good, there will be some legitimate gripes — particularly from folks who waited for hours for shuttle buses after arriving today.
It’s FloydFest’s first-ever Sunday sell-out, with about 12,500 people on the grounds, and today was the only day for which the festival sold single-day advance tickets. About 1,000 single-day reserved tickets went on sale Friday before last, and it’s certain that folks bought up the 250 tickets set aside for 11′s ultimate day.
But for some Sunday-only folks, it was the ultimate bummer. Joie Ayala, of Charleston, S.C., said that people in the lot where she parked spent up to three hours waiting on a shuttle bus. She and her friends gave up waiting and began to walk before someone in a pickup truck saw them and gave them a lift the rest of the way.
Ayala said one man she spoke with in the lot told her that as he waited, he had missed every act he came to see.
From the timeline that Ayala gave me, it seems that many of those stuck waiting had not arrived particularly early. Others onsite said they showed up early and got in fine. But it’s definitely something for the organizers to look at next year.
“I love FloydFest, and I’m not dogging it,” said Ayala, who has been to many of them and was just meeting up with her mother, Diane LeBlanc of Roanoke, as we spoke in the line at Sugar Shack. She just wants them to work out that kink. Send them your feeback, Joie.
July 31, 2012 - 9:57 AM
The walk to the site from lot A is about 30 minutes. I walked as did many others. Traffic on Sunday was CRAZY with people trying to get packed and leave. More busses would help some, but Black Ridge was backed up to the parking lot when I walked over.
We got there pretty early. We spent way more time in line for shuttles than listening to music. For $70 a ticket, I think they needed to do a little better.
We had to park in Lot D after arriving at 11:30. When we saw the long lines waiting for buses, we realized we were much too late. We got to the festival site around 2:30. Despite the delays, we enjoyed the time we had but anticipating the long wait for a bus back to the parking lot, we left shortly after 5:00 just after Allison Krause had begun. We will probably return again but will plan better and come earlier. It was a wonderful festival with great food and many vendors and lots of interesting things to do. I hope that not too many people were turned off by the delays so that next year will be sold out too. Thanks!
Short wait for us in the morning. Leaving was a different story altogether. We left the main stage at 5 and did not board a shuttle until after 6. Line for lot A moved at a snail’s pace. Music was outstanding, though.
Thanks to visitors from Maine who ordered the tickets online while I was procrastinating… and my wanting to get to the 10:30 a.m. contradance… we were up Sunday at an uncharacteristic 7:30 a.m., then followed the website’s suggested Rt221 route (NOT B.R. Parkway) to the Black Ridge parking lot, boarded a bus IMMEDIATELY, arrived on-site at or before 10, and had a great time — mostly going to the small stages and avoiding mobs at the “big name” acts.
Any “just went for A.Krause” fans must have been terribly disappointed — with hundreds of lawn chairs staking out all available space since morning and umbrellas or sunshade tarps blocking sight-lines from a distance.
We left after her first or second song (for those reasons, plus general all-day fatigue) and finally hit the shuttle-bus bottleneck to get back to the lot. Once again, the drive back to Radford was nice and easy; very little traffic. Getting to the lot was the only hangup.
More departing buses and a separate loading area for that “A” lot would have helped, since the waiting line was about 10 times as long as the ones for the other lots. The gospel band on the workshop stage helped pass some of the waiting time pleasantly. Next year: Add one more band to play for folks at the head of the line. (A few more “last chance” portajohns wouldn’t hurt, either.)
All things considered, I think the transportation logistics organizers made the best of the situation, calling out extra buses and drivers to cope with the Sunday-only ticketholders. They could have used more, but I don’t know where they’d get them!
I’ve attended literally hundreds of concerts and dozens of festivals of all kinds, including Floydfest four previous times. Excepting the infamous “Stompin ’76″ fiasco, I don’t think I’ve attended a more poorly executed festival – at least from the outside looking in. I’m sure the music was great for those who got in. Floydfest is noted for booking great and eclectic line-ups.
Not being able to attend except on Sunday, my group arrived at the reasonable hour of 10:30 a.m., expecting to be shuttled in at least within an hour in time to take in the great Main Stage line-up. What we found was that we were directed to a parking area TEN MILEs from the site, paid $15 for the privilege and then encountered a line that became probably three to four hundred folks waiting for buses that arrived only every 25 minutes or so to shuttle another 40 in on a ten mile drive on mountain roads. You do the math on how long it would have taken to get everyone in. Because we calculated that even if we did eventually make it in, at probably about 1 p.m., we’d have to leave three hours later to beat what must have been ridiculous crowds to get out of the place. We opted not to subject ourselves to that situation, in the process giving up over two hundred dollars worth of admission as a result.
The Festival has been lauded, and justly so, for bringing excellent music and economic help to an area that can use it. It’s just a crying shame that the organizers didn’t check themselves in pursuit of the almighty dollar to the point that it got like this. Shame on you folks who did this. It isn’t a righteous way of doing things.
I once waited for five hours to leave the parking lot of a Pink Floyd concert. I have waited in line for an hour to ride a roller coaster. I used to wait in traffic for two hours everyday, just to get home from work. When they have an evening Red Sox game in Boston half of the city is gridlocked from noon till midnight. I am sure there were some issues, but we are spoiled here in SW Virginia. We don’t have to wait for anything and because of that we don’t always plan ahead when we are going someplace that 12,000 other people are going.