Reviews of the Great American Food & Music Fest

Or as one blogger called it, the Great American Food and Music Fiasco.

Blogs and newspaper articles are rifling today over the debacle that was yesterday's Great American Food & Music Fest. There were so many, I didn't even jot down the url's for all of them.

"Where was the music," one blogger questioned. "We left after one hour, and warned everyone waiting in line to not go in," wrote another.

From a Serious Eats blog, here are a few more comments:

"As we were walking from our car to the venue in mid-afternoon, patrons walking back to their cars were warning us not go. They said that lines for food were hours long and some food was running low or gone altogether. I should have listened and turned around because not only were the lines ridiculously long and some food running low, there were way more people than I had ever anticipated. It was pretty much shoulder to shoulder. No wonder there was a problem getting food to everyone. I did see Guy Fieri's first demo (which was well done) squinting through at least a hundred heads."

"bobby flay and guy fieri should have fire their agents for talking them into such a poorly planned event."

"Did anyone even see Bobby Flay or Guy Fieri? Did they even show up?!"

And a reply from one of the event coordinators (A Mr. Jim Lewi, producer, of the Agency Group if I'm not mistaken)

Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I am so incredibly sorry about what you went through.

We certainly had every intention of making everything perfect. The fact is, the problems were not anyone's fault by ours. Not the building's, not Live Nation. We wanted to keep lines down so we invested all this money (upfront...not too smart) for the "cashless system" that would do just that... according to the company that was running it. This company had a resume that included NASCAR races (200,000 +) so when we heard that every transaction could be made in 3-seconds or less, we were in. We had them come in a week early and start testing...making sure everything worked...then as we opened the doors, the system failed.

The Fest did have an emergency system in place and cash banks and credit card machines were distributed prior to the show, but it took us nearly 45-minutes to switch over and by that point, we had very large lines. Added to that, it was our first year and we had no way to really judge attendance. We looked at "pre-sales" and doubled them thinking that was safe...and we would be over. We were wrong...and very sorry.

It is important to us as producers for you to understand that we do care and put years of hard work into this just to have one company take us down.

If you would like a refund, it isn't the easiest process, but it does work.

PLEASE SEND A PHOTOCOPY OF YOUR TICKETS BACK TO

Shoreline Amphitheatre
One Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
ATTN: BOX OFFICE REFUNDS

Again, we are all so sorry this happened...but at the same time are not giving up. We will come back next year on our tour and will have something special for those who were put out this year.

Thank you again for writing.

Jim

When I get reviews from people who saw Guy Fieri's demonstrations, I'll post them ... uh ... post haste. ~D