Playground Festival makes history in irvine

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Written by John Alvarez

Thursday, 08 September 2011 08:16

While on paper the Playground Festival had potential to be historical… it still made history but for the wrong reasons. Starting with Saturday, the first set of bands went on around 11:45 while ticket holders were held up outside the venue for another hour because nobody had a clue what was going on outside.

The problems however started way before that. The OC Register documented how the promoters were trying to come up with funding for the event, possibly illegally. The article from the Register says that Elevated Sound Productions (http://www.elevatedsoundproduction.com/, which has been taken down a few days ago), was making cold calls and/or using leads to sell “stock” in the festival to potential investors. The alleged cold callers would compare the festival to that of Coachella or EDC. Note: their other website, http://mindcontrolledevent.com is still up.

It doesn’t appear like ESP came through. According to the artists we spoke with at the festival, it was their job to sell tickets and promote the festival as promoters were trying to save money on marketing. In fact, over the past weeks we personally have never seen Playground Festival flyers being passed out at any other festivals and concerts and only have heard a handful of commercials – but not enough to make a difference.

There were lots of other problems for the Playground Festival . A few of the stages that were supposed to be setup were not for unknown reasons, and artists that brought their gear and were ready to play ended up watching the show instead or just left. The VIP main stage for example didn’t exist. In fact, there was no VIP section.

Problems also existed for stages that were in setup and running as well though. Billed performers didn’t show up.

Lil jon publicly on his twitter announced he wasn’t going to be at the festival and instead was going to be in Vegas. The game was a no show for who knows what reason (presumably funding?), and Too short… no show either. The no-shows however wouldn’t have been as much of a big deal if people know what was happening. On august 31st Lil Jon announced he would not be at Playground Festival and instead would be playing in Las Vegas, However, on September 2nd when the playground festival website posted set times – lil jon was still listed.

There were another handful of other performers that also didn’t show up for the main stage which was good for nick cannon, who used the time to invite his friends up there to do their thing and get some advertisement in front of the couple hundred in attendance.

On Saturday Shiny toy guns and Street Drum Corps made it worth staying in the unorganized mess. Cisco Adler put us to sleep. Mickey Avalon, while entertaining as a performer looked like he was confused and out of it the entire time, being sluggish and almost falling off the stage once or twice. Others on the stage were forgotten soon after they were on.

Sunday, with still around the same couple hundred in attendance, actually had all three of its headliners in attendance – but that didn’t stop some opening acts from coming in. Steel Panther and Fishbone were no shows for example.

You would assume that on Sunday things would be a little more figured out – but I guess promoters decided to give up Saturday because not much changed. Stages still didn’t exist, bands still had nowhere to play, no schedules were setup and at the smaller stages, and when they were – things were changed a few times. It was just a huge mess.

Once again the main stage had Nick Cannon and his friends trying their best to fill in for the 10 acts that didn’t show (Kid Sister, Steel panther, Fishbone, etc etc etc) . When YG was on stage it was a good time to nap, I think Big Sean had 35 minutes on stage and was just enough to tease. Chiddy bang didn’t shine much.

There was a silver lining to the failed festival though. Franki Doll and the Broken Toys finally went on the KIIS FM Stage and played like troopers even though they should have been on the main stage where they would have shined. The Bravery’s set was alone worth the ticket price, and Panic at the disco was just icing on the cake at this failed festival that finally got a little redemption with these three bands.

There are lots of rumors about the reason bands didn’t show up was because they were not getting paid due to festival being broke/5 people at the show/etc… I think it’s important to understand that chances are that Bravery, Panic, and Franki didn’t get paid (or enough) either but instead of leaving the festival entirely – decided to play for the fans, and that says something.

After all is said and done, I think promoters will be back and do things right next time (guys, don’t forget to market!) – maybe under a new festival name, maybe under a new corporation… but next time, im sure things will be different.