Twitter Fail Whale

So M, 10HDG, and I hit the Houston Free Press Summer FAIL! Fest this weekend. Houston Free Press made an attempt at making their own Fun^3 Fest.  Granted, one could say it was a good first attempt at an indie music festival in Houston.  But I think that these guys overextended themselves with a two day, two stage festival full of music with no outside food or beverages. The whole weekend I was haunted by this image.  The sign of disappointment.

The first failure was getting into the festival. Our tickets were at will call.  We stood in the will call line, then some festival staff walked by the line and said that anyone with a printed confirmation or a phone with confirmation on it could walk up to the gate.  How was this a Fail! moment?  Well, we got to the gate in no time but we didn’t receive our VIP wristband or $20 in food/drink tickets.  We walked around in the sweltering heat trying to find someone who knew how to remedy the situation.  After walking to the other end of the park I managed to find someone to get us VIP wristbands but they didnt’ have food vouchers.  M and 10HDG didn’t have cash and apparently the festival only worked in shiny beads and trinkets food/drink tickets  that had to be purchased with cash.  At this point we were hot, tired and  ready to leave.  Emailling paypal to try and get our money back was sounding like a good idea.  We went back to where we entered the park and finally got someone of authority (they had a walkie talkie) to get us the tickets.  We also found an ATM.

Photo by Limorama. People are thirsty, Yo!

The second failure of the day was the drought.  Food/Drink tickets were supposed to give us access to water and other items.  Unfortunately the only thing around to drink was soda or bud light products.  We saw signs all over for Sweet Leaf tea and water but they were out 100% of the time.  Vitamin water was an event sponsor.  Unfortunately we made it down to their tent only to find empties on the ground and coolers full of ice.

After exploring the entire park we finally found the air conditioned VIP tent that we were promised.  We were greeted by more empty vitamin water coolers.  Luckily the cash bar granted us water at $1/bottle.  Not only did they take cash in the VIP tent, but they had liquor and the water was a dollar cheaper.  Unfortunately, the VIP tent had a very BAD DJ.  We couldn’t stay in there very long.

After hydrating, I decided that we should try and offload the food/drink tickets.  There was nothing worth purchasing with them.  Everything we thought of purchasing was gone by the time we got to the front of the line.  By this time, the lines to purchase tickets were pretty long. We sold our tickets in no time.

The day finally got better with $20 in hand and Broken Social Scene about to go on stage.  BSS was well worth the $22.76 that we currently had invested in the festival.  Kevin Drew stopped the show to break up a fight between two “Dickheads”.    It was pretty awesome.  He offered some medical advice to a festival goer with heat exaustion later in the show.

We closed out day 1 of the festival with Explosions in the Sky.  It was odd that they were the headliner and not BSS.  I enjoyed this show more than the one at Stubb’s last month.  I had a better view of the stage this time.

We had low expectations for day 2.  There was a storm approaching the area and there was a potential for the concert getting rained out.  We found parking on the street and hit the park around 4.  We were finally sucessful in getting free vitamin water.  The first fail for day 2 was that UME was a no show.  The rain came down while I was waiting for Prince Paul to come on stage.    It rained for about 5 minutes and that’s when it started to smell a lot like the zoo.  The dancing hippies had covered themselves in paint and proceeded to dance around and get paint on anyone in their path.  Not cool!

After dancing it out to Prince Paul for 30 minutes, I retreated to the A/C tent.  I found M and 10HDG and we decided after Voxtrot, we were going home.   It was hot and it smelled like the zoo.  I was a little shocked that Voxtrot a) played such a short set and b) wasn’t playing very much off their new album.    Regardless, they played a good set.

Hopefully the organizers took note of the failures of this weekend.  Addressing them will definitely improve the event next time.

Final thoughts:

1. Use your pre-sale numbers to plan for the amount of food and beverage to sell on site.
2. Limit tickets available at the gate.  This will a) increase the number of presale tickets and b) prevent the clusterfuck associated with getting into the festival
3. Don’t make promises you can’t keep (on the website).  We didn’t see much in the arena of free water,
4. Mail tickets/credentials to the presale buyers.  You know you needed their money to make this event happen.  The least you could do is mail them their credentials so they don’t have to wait in line.
5. Let people know ahead of time that vendors don’t  take plastic.  Explain the event is cash only and maybe provide info on where the ATMs are located.
6. Security- My bag was checked on day 2 but not day 1.  Anyone could have walked in on day 1 if they flashed their cell phone claiming that they had an online confirmation.
7. It was hard to tell where the entrance to the festival was.  Please provide a better map. It would also help to provide a map/schedule the day of, to prevent people from wandering aimlessly.  It would also help your clueless staff.
8. Vendors-  There should be more vendors.  Demand was greater than supply.