Originally published October 2015

I've been to a few metal festival shows over the years. Not many, but enough. I've been to enough to make the decision that I don't want to do it anymore. I was already starting to lean towards not going to them anymore for one reason or another, but my recent experience at the Aftershock festival has pushed me over the edge into the hard "No" territory.

As I said, I haven't been to many festival shows, but the ones I remember the most were the several Mayhem festivals I attended in the past few years down at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. If the lineups of these festivals weren't worth it, I didn't bother going, but sometimes I just showed up extra late just so I could see the one headlining band I wanted to see. For the ones I did attend from start to finish, I always had fun and was happy with the experience, for the most part.

It was fun to be there with your friends listening to live music, but it was also extremely tiring and occasionally boring. At the shows where the lineups were filled with bands I didn't care about, but my friends wanted to see the rest, I spent much of my time in line to get merch and signatures while I waited for the more desirable bands to take the stage. The last Mayhem show I attended really only brought me out with 4 of the 12+ bands. I left with some cool experiences, memories of awesome performances, and some great posters and t-shirts, but I felt like it wasn't worth the money and effort.

I had not spent a whole day at a festival since then, until this past weekend when I attended the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, CA. The festival was a two-day affair, but I thankfully only attended one. Having walked away from it being glad I got to see some of the bands, the overall experience was not worth the effort or the price. A small part of that is how few of the bands were interesting to me, but a big part of that has to do with how poorly this event was planned out and executed. From the placement of the bathrooms, to the arbitrary rules of entry, to the inconvenient band times, the Aftershock festival was a major bust and has reassured me that festival shows are just not worth it. You may be initially excited when you see so many big names of bands you know on an event roster at the same time, but most of them will play for only a short while, and some you may miss entirely due to time overlap. Festival posters are basically selling you the high-end of the car with all the promised bells and whistles, but when it comes time to buy it, not every car on the lot will have what you want for the price you expected.

Allow me to go into detail a little more and compare it to my previous experiences so I may explain why Aftershock was such a bummer.

Bands + Timing

I feel it's necessary to give the disclaimer that I honestly didn't care too much for the entire lineup of the show; I was going more for the sake of the company I was in. So, it may have been set to fail in my eyes already. Nonetheless, there were still a few bands sprinkled into the lineup that drew my attention. I went to the Sunday show for bands like The Sword, Red Fang, and Deftones, along with the hope of seeing Failure and Sevendust out of curiosity. The other bands ranged from stuff from the ‘90s, to rap, to screamo and hardcore.

The lineup was released a while ago, along with the days that each band would be performing that weekend. However, stage and time details were not disclosed until much later. I checked their website about 10 days prior to the event and nothing had been updated. Perhaps they wanted to wait to make sure all the bands could make it, but nothing so much as a start time. I had to guess when to get on the road and make the 2+ hour journey to Sacramento based on the times of the show from the previous year.

At some point, they released the times. I never got an email alert or anything to inform me, even though I had purchased my tickets a month in advance. My girlfriend found out who was playing at what time and we determined that we needed to get there relatively early because the bands I wanted to see were all playing in the beginning half of the day. It seemed to work out almost too well with how we could just move from one stage to another throughout the day with the bands that she wanted to see and the bands that I wanted. No conflicts in the schedule, whatsoever.

Little did we know that the list we were looking at was inaccurate. I'm not sure if this schedule was unofficial, or if it was a schedule that had been changed and simply had not been updated on my girlfriend's phone. I just know that band times were completely different from what they were before. Suddenly, some of the bands I wanted to see were playing much earlier than stated and others much later. Two of the bands that Meghan wanted to see were now playing at the same time on separate stages. There were also some big gaps in time in between where nothing interesting was happening.

This is pretty much the worst outcome when it comes to festival schedules. The ones I've been to tend to do their best to keep the overlap to a minimum with only 2 side stages switching off with one band performing immediately after another and one big stage for the main headliners. Aftershock, however, had an extra stage and too many bands to fit into one day, so several bands overlapped with each other. This effectively cut my interest in the whole show in half, because now, instead of four bands that may have held my interest, there could only be two I could give my full attention. I could have, of course, moved from one stage to another during the middle of their sets, but there was a problem with that.

Stage Layout

There were 4 stages set up in this massive park where the event took place. 2 of the stages were placed right next to each other, while one was a few hundred feet away facing the same direction, and another (very small stage) was placed near the entrance, about 800 feet away, beyond a grassy knoll. While the hillside served the purpose of drowning out the sound from other stages as other bands played, that didn't stop the organizers from making bands play on the other stages at the same time, letting the music intermingle with one another.

If two of the performances had been removed from the roster, there would have been no purpose for this fourth stage. The schedule could have cycled through each of the big 3 stages facing the same direction and people could have moved from one to the other as each band performed and the roadies set up the next stage. I can think of the two "artists" right now that fit in the least with the rest of the music and could have been dropped from the show to help accommodate this change. Their names escape me, but I remember how it was so bizarre to have an hour in the middle of the day filled with just wannabe Kid Rocks.

Since there were so many artists and 4 stages, we had to navigate this huge park, going back and forth between the small front stage and the big 3, trying to figure out who was playing where. The new schedule told us the band names and the stages to which they were assigned. There were also copies of the schedule posted around the park to make sure you knew who was going on, when, and where. Except, there were a few small problems.

They had given the names of the stages, but only one of them was actually labeled. You had to look on a separate map to figure out the actual names of the stages and where they were placed--North Stage was not the northernmost stage, despite what you might expect. Not only that, but the stage names were wrong on some of the schedule boards in the park. So they couldn't even get that information right. You just kind of had to figure it out on your own by listening for the music and assuming the times were correct. If you didn't know the songs that well, tough shit. If your ears weren't used to listening to two different bands play at the same time and you couldn't interpret the garbled mess of loud music sex taking place in your ears, tough shit.

Going to a regular show at a club or theater is great because it's just one band at a time. You get to hear their music as they intend it, or as best they can with the acoustics of the venue, and then the next one takes the stage. At a festival, there are no walls or acoustics. It just goes out into the open area around the stage and dissipates into the distance. This also means that there is not much to separate the music playing on separate stages. When Sevendust and Failure were playing at the same time, their music was bleeding into one another. Failure was probably helping Sevendust’s sound more than hurting it, but it just made everything sound muddy. I could have gotten closer to Sevendust to hear them better, but I also wanted to be able to go to the other stage to get whatever few minutes remained of Failure's set, which would have been near impossible if I had gotten close to the stage with all the people present.

On a personal side note from that particular experience that is unrelated to the points I'm trying to make: I should have reversed my interests. I knew Sevendust because I listened to them when I was first getting into metal. However, I haven't listened to them in more than 5 years and I had never seen them live. Failure is a band I've heard of, due to my love for the band Tool and their history together, but I had never really listened to them. So it made sense to me to see the band I knew out of curiosity more than the one I didn't know. I chose poorly because the few minutes of Failure's set that I heard sounded so much better than what I heard from Sevendust. Sevendust did not sound good, I was quite bored with their performance, and I knew only 1 of the songs they played. Plus, they talked a lot and said some crap about how everyone there was their family and how blessed they felt to have had such loyal fans make their dreams come true. Bleh! Stop saying cheesy crap and play your damn music!

Anyways, back to the point: Everything just sounded crappy. The only time a band sounded clear and good was when they were on a big stage, no one else was playing, and you were able to stand directly in line with the stage. Seeing bands at festival shows can be quite a spectacle because of just how many people can attend and crazy performances can occur on such massive stages. I'm sure the bands love to see the sea of people bouncing around to their music, too. It just doesn't sound good in that environment and it's a pain in the ass constantly having to move back and forth across a big park to another stage, especially if you're trying to secure a good place to sit or stand. If you want to find a good spot, you have to get there early, which means missing someone playing somewhere else in the park.

The whole point of getting that many bands is to draw people to the festival, but poor stage placement and poor time management practically eliminate half of the performances for the fans.

Organization

There are some important utilities and responsibilities that come with setting up an event like this. First aid is of course a necessity and I saw that there was a tent with a well-lit weather balloon marked with a red cross to let people know where to go. I didn't have to go there, so I can't tell you how good they are at being field paramedics, but we'll assume that was at least thought out.

When planning an event like this you also have to think about common conveniences, such as parking, bathrooms, water fountains, after-dark lighting, etc. Of everything I just mentioned, parking was the only thing that seemed slightly planned, but I may have been one of the few who didn't have the worst experience with that.

Water Fountains

There was one. ONE. For the thousands of people there, there was one water fountain in the middle of the park that wasn't even really a fountain, just a facet for you to fill your water bottles up. Oh and don't worry about the cloudy unfiltered water, that's just either minerals or e-coli. If there were more of these, I didn't see them while I was there.

After-Dark Lighting

Good thing the moon was out or you would have had trouble navigating through the sea of people in between the areas the fog lights could actually reach. It becomes something of a problem if people can't see where they're walking, they're intoxicated, and they have to walk on dirt roads that are full of bumps and holes. Having your show in a park in the middle of farm country means that there are no infrastructural lights available to you, so you actually have to provide those yourself. From my observations, I'd say the organizers only thought about this one for about half the time that was necessary.

Bathrooms

Once again, if you are throwing a show in the middle of a park that has no infrastructure because it's in the middle of nowhere, then you have to provide certain utilities yourself. If there were any bathroom buildings in the place, I didn't see them. There might have been because this park was supposedly supposed to be usable for campgrounds, but from what I saw, there were just portapotties. Which is fine. That's what you expect at these big events. You also expect a few more than what was actually provided.

Inside the park, there were two bathroom areas that had about 25-35 portable outhouses--the map said 3, but I only saw 2 while I was there. These areas were on opposing sides of the park, so if you had to go and there was a big line at one area, you either had to wait or risk the long walk to the other side to find the other place, which was likely busy. There were thousands of people at this event, and they provided about 60 toilets. In comparison to the amount of food stands and food trucks at the park, and how much they were expecting you to consume in the day, this seemed like a low number to me. At least they provided wash stations. Half didn't work, but they provided them.

My biggest gripe with the bathroom situation, however, was the placement of one group in the parking lot. For the entire 30-acre parking lot, there were a grand total of four toilets available. They were all strategically placed together by a true mastermind of planning at the entrance of the path that would eventually lead to the entrance of the park. This was a transgression in planning that happened to offend me personally because of the fact that I had just driven for more than 2 hours to get here, as I'm sure many others had, and I had to use the facilities. Having to park down towards one end of the parking lot wider than a stadium, I was quite irritated having to search for them, walk for about 15 minutes to finally wait in line for another 10 minutes, and then walk for another 15 minutes back to my car because I didn't expect to have to go all the way to the front to use the flipping bathroom.

Parking

Everyone parked in a giant empty cornfield in the middle of nowhere, half a mile or more away from the actual entrance of the park. The process of parking was not bad, as people were courteous and helpful in directing the traffic and getting you where you needed to go. But the parking lot was a dirt field. It wasn't a soft hay field with beds of straw and it wasn't paved asphalt. It was a hard, dusty field that probably put my car's suspension through a lot more work than it had to deal with in 10 years. People and cars were covered with dust going through there. When I brushed my teeth that night, I could feel some of the grit coming off my teeth.

All of that, however, I didn't mind. What I did mind was the proximity of the parking lot. If you go to festivals, you expect to have to walk a while from your car to the venue. A lot of space is needed for all the cars that are going to be present at this event which will have thousands of people, so getting a parking lot to accommodate that is difficult to come by. The problem is that the actual entrance to the park was about a little over a quarter of a mile away from the exit of the parking lot. If you were in the back corner of the parking lot, you had another half-mile to walk before you'd even reach that path. I had managed to secure myself a space in the 3rd row, but I was still well over 1000 feet away from the entrance. This normally isn't an issue for me because I don't typically mind walking and I understand that an event organizer can't do much about a park without a real parking lot for this type of event. The problem I had with everything being so far apart was the placement of the bathrooms and the arbitrary rules that ended up forcing me to walk/run almost 2 miles before I even got in the park, which actually made me late to a performance as a result.

Arbitrary Rules

I hate vague arbitrary rules. I don't mind rules such as No Weapons, because that makes sense. That's a good rule to have and it's pretty clear. I don't mind the rules that say no wallet chains either; those can be used as weapons as well. I sort of understand the no colors patches rule because, I'm assuming, it has to do with gangs and trying to keep violence out of the arena. I have a problem with this rule:

I've always had a small problem with the "no outside drink" rule because it's a pointless rule that only pisses off and inconveniences the people who don't want to start trouble. It certainly doesn't stop the others from sneaking in their booze. It also isn't a rule that's in place for any reason other than to make you buy the alcohol at the venue with the venue's hiked prices. I've always accepted the rule, however, because they could hide behind the argument of safety by saying how they're trying to control the drinking of their attendants. This is fine, I'll accept the argument of safety. Except they actually put the "no outside alcohol" rule separately from this one and even explained that it will be sold at the park, so they're not even bullshitting about the safety. So, what's the deal with the "no outside food or drink" rule? If this were a safety rule, food wouldn't be included in this rule.

I know about some techniques people have used to sneak booze in through various food packages, but if you're willing to have your security pat people down and check bags for this stuff, then you're obviously not concerned about safety in relation to their food. It's all for the same reason as the booze. They want you to buy the food and drinks they provide at the venue price. Note what they said on their webpage:

How noble of them to "provide" food trucks and vendors for us. Food trucks are already overpriced everywhere you go, let alone at a place like this. You're lucky to get an appetizer's worth of food for $10, and it's an all-day event so you're going to get hungry at least once during the day. Every other show like this I've been to, I've brought a sandwich, or some sort of meal, to tide me over throughout the day. It was never an issue. It's not an issue at places like ballparks either because they figure you'll be there long enough to want to eat again anyway. They still have the "no drinks" rule for the same reasons, but they'll let you bring your own food.

I think the organizers missed the point of rules for these events. Rules are typically meant to ensure the safety of your patrons and to help people have a fun experience. They're not meant to control your audience like cattle consumers and force them to pay your hiked-up prices at the risk of going hungry. They would never claim you should starve or dehydrate yourself because that would be unsafe and could ruin your experience. In fact, they provided this helpful little tip:

Fuck you, Aftershock. Your "helpful" advice contradicts your rules. To my knowledge, if you're bringing in water, you're bringing in an outside drink. Since you bothered to separate "alcohol" from "drink," clearly outside drink should include water right? This is what your rules and tips are saying to me:

Drink plenty of water! You can't bring your own outside drinks, but drink plenty of water! We only have ONE water fountain for the whole park of thousands of people, but drink plenty of unfiltered gross water! Don't worry if you can't drink that stuff, we can sell you 8oz bottles of water for $3 each and create a bunch of unnecessary plastic trash! But don't litter!

Except I saw people bring in their own water bottles. They didn't do what other festivals have done by taking the cap off, they just let people walk in with full water bottles. So half of their security don't even know what rules to follow. They knew not to let us in with our sandwiches at least, so, good work there.

They did not, however, mention this pointless rule anywhere else than at the front gate. This is where I blame some of my negative experiences on my own negligence. I should have looked more closely at the rules on the website and noticed the "no outside food or drink" rule buried beneath the no-brainer rules like "no weapons." But I've been to festivals before, and I was basing my expected experience on what I've already done. I do recall looking to see if I could bring food in but didn't notice it under the "do not" list. I instead clicked the Food and Drinks option in their lists of FAQs, which did not mention saying you couldn't bring your own, and assumed that I could bring my sandwiches and grab a bite there if necessary.

I was wrong however, and I did not realize how wrong I was until I had reached the front gate where they were kind enough to place the only sign they had that listed what you could not bring in. This was also the only place their security was saying anything about it. They kept saying "no food and drink" over and over because I'm willing to bet I wasn't alone in my surprise. Why they didn't have someone doing this in the parking lot, a half-mile away, is anyone's guess.

So with two big sandwiches I had purchased that morning in my hand at the front gate, what did I do? I walked a half mile back to my car to put my girlfriend's in there and ate most of mine on the way. I then ran the other half back to the front gate with a full stomach. After dealing with that fiasco, I managed to get into the park, discover the schedule was wrong, discover the locations of bands and stages were wrong, and catch one song by The Sword before they left the stage. The Sword happened to be the main band I wanted to see that day and had I known that the schedule was incorrect, I might have hustled my ass back to my car faster or just eaten the sandwich at the front gate. As you might have guessed, I was quite irritated that I missed them due to these random inconveniences that seemed to pop up.

After getting inside, laughing at the irony of the fact there were so many picnic tables in the park, and walking past the countless food stands and food trucks that could have burst into flames and I wouldn't have cared, do you know what I bought for myself while I was there? 1 Bottle of water for 3 dollars that I then refilled at their ONE water fountain. They got 3 extra dollars from me after they had already gotten my $130 for the 2 GA tickets and $15 for parking. Yes, parking was an extra $15 if you paid in advance, and $20 cash if you paid there. The arbitrary rules did nothing other than irritate me and partially ruin my experience to the point that I wasn't willing to give them more money than I had to in order to stay alive and stay hydrated. I drove home hungry and was satisfied having not given them any more than what they had already gotten from me.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

This was an expensive, exhausting, and frustrating experience. I enjoyed the performances I got to see and still had fun because I was in good company, but I don't want to do this again. It's just not worth it and the music at the festivals rarely sounds that good.

The Aftershock festival, in particular, only managed to further exacerbate my growing, negative opinion of festival concerts. Some of the negative experiences can be attributed to my own foolish assumptions and negligence in reading all the "fine print beforehand." However, for the most part, Aftershock's pointlessly selfish, arbitrary rules, poor planning, and crappy placement of utilities showed how little they're willing to do for you, even after you've given them so much money for your tickets and parking. This experience was a stark reminder to me of what I already knew: festival organizers and sponsors don't care about providing a cool show or experience, they just want to hook you in with their band lineup and get your money. If you didn't come there to spend more money on whatever food or merchandise they had, they would probably be happier if you didn't show up at all, or just starved to death.

Fuck you, Aftershock.

Update June 2016

They pulled a fast one in their recent announcement and put my two favorite bands together on the same day for 2016.... God. Dammit.