This petition is important to me based on the years of experience I have personally had working, for various clients in Events, staff, and patrons. This, quite frankly,  is not how you treat the people who made this possible, the people who paid to be there. This is not at all acceptable,  it is time to change the precedent of what is acceptable, or tolerated treatment at outside venue festivals regarding safety on grounds, emergency evacuation procedure, price gouging during natural disaster,  weather monitoring, enough medical management during extreme temperature and to have enough resources for the number of people expected to be at the festival. No outsourcing the resources, in which they terribly did. Appropriate Incident Command, Appropriate staff briefing, care, and management.  Appropriate working conditions for staff (considering they are there to take care of patrons)...in what should have been a layered process of people taking care of people, there was nothing but breakdown, chaos, damage and injury.

 

The Blue Ridge Rock Festival was something many of us had looked forward to for nearly a year. We paid very steep prices to attend. People traveled from all over the globe to attend what was meant to be an amazing 5 day line-up of amazing artists.

In our case we arrived on Wednesday Sept. 6, 2023 with plans to stay through Sept.10, 2023. Our stay would not only end up in an odd beginning where it seemed no one knew what was going on, or where anything was, but a very disastrous and disappointing end, where ultimately we were left packing what was left of our soaked damaged things and heading home very early Saturday morning. 

I got turned away from infield care wearing a heart monitor, and suffered heat exhaustion, while trying to find the ADA tent. Basically told to go drop somewhere else. This was after having emailed them prior to even showing up to let them know I would be needing assistance to try to keep the phone to my monitor charged , and the pendant charged at all times and was directed to go to the accessibility services hub to get an ADA wristband for use of ADA showers and transportation around grounds to be able to charge my monitor and such. No one knew where any of that was and their maps weren't drawn well enough to figure out where to be or go. 

I had to take a shower in the ADA showers in human excrement, as the toilets were not properly emptied and no adequate drainage. After standing for 3hrs in the heat and sun, the sanitation folks came to empty the portable toilets next to the showers and there were drainage issues in the shower we were waiting on, he was asked to go pump out and fix the issue,  he was packing up, we asked if it was ok to go in, he said yes, we go in..husband says the toilet didn't look completely flushed,  he flushes it and before we knew it, we were standing in 3" of human excrement, it flowed out the back box and over the top in seconds..nothing to do but shower at that point hoping the water wasn't contaminated. Couldn't adjust the cold and hot water properly people,  were manually adjusting the valves to the propane tanks outside of the showers..which I don't think was supposed to be happening.

ADA carts were taken and used as taxi's leaving ADA folks without adequate accommodation post natural disaster,  what is the point in ADA Accommodation if it cannot actually be utilized and/or a protected legal civil right. It also was a matter of safety. After all folks if the heart isn't working adequately, neither will the legs,  let's keep that in mind.

We walked through vicious wind, thunder,  lightning and hail to get to the campsite that was destroyed by an undetected (by anyone apparently) microburst. With 4" of standing water and mangled tents and canopies, I walked barefoot 100yds through flooded fields to get to an EMS tent to see if I could find a way to charge my heart monitor phone. 

I know I am not alone as a patron. I also know that patrons should never have to deal with this kind of neglect and mistreatment. 

I am trained in several levels of FEMA based Incident Command. I work in Crisis Intervention,  I have worked 12yrs in Security and Events and never would this mistreatment be allowed. 

The change needs to be accountability.  The Festival Organizers  neglected staff, and Patron needs when they failed to have, plan and execute a proper evacuation plan per a natural disaster, they failed to have adequate number and location of hydration stations and/or cooling stations. They failed to have enough ADA restroom,showers and transportation, and proper sanitation, they failed to have their staff informed and/or briefed on crowd management, control and venue information to assist patrons in finding event functions. They failed to have adequate weather monitoring to allow for either evacuation or sheltering. There was no adequate shelter post storm. They severely price gouged in a crisis situation, marking tents to 400.00. Abusing RFID wristbands linked to bank accounts or cards. 

No one from the festival or the venue has offered refunds,  nor have they done anything to reach out in effort to reimburse for what was lost or damaged. 

If this does not change, then it sets a dangerous precedent that no one can truly expect safety and/or protection at events in Virginia's venues. There should always be a reasonable expectation of safety and/or protection physically,  emotionally, mentally and financially.

The goal of this petition is to get at least 100 signatures of those who attended and would be willing to follow through with a potential Class Action lawsuit. This would mean you could be called to testify and/or your story brought forth.

Please help us hold these Organizers  accountable. There is limited time. 

There is an interested attorney in Hampton Virginia that needs the interest to pursue litigation,signatures and stories of at least 100 festival attendees to push this class action. The Dept. Of Justice has already turned down even an ADA request for investigation. It seems necessary we will need to stand for each other.

We have to act now!

The Law Office of Carteia Basnight can be contacted directly or we can show her our interest here as this will be forwarded to her. 

 

Please share, please sign and let's make sure this doesn't happen again in Virginia.

Even in my very own work,  I always keep the mind set that if it weren't for you, I wouldn't even have my job and for that and for people like fans I am extremely grateful. 

I attend VIR and it's track quite frequently and this is not the norm for this Venue, ordinarily they hold such amazing events, they give so much to charity, and typically show great care for the patrons they serve. This was completely on the Organizers of the BRRF and that is the sole focus of accountability.

Thank you for any help you can bring to this matter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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