On When Mother Nature Calls at Music Festivals
The level of in-your-face gentrification on display from Porta-Potties at music festivals — like OSL—is all too real
In the week, prior to the pandemic, I had attended three concerts then flew to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I have waited for Erykah Badu to step on a stage at midnight on a Wednesday. My digital drives have more photos of concert footage I have taken with my phone than anything else. Outside Lands being only one of them that I have attended, on my own dime for a number of years pre-pandemic.
I felt I needed to validate my love for in-person music events to lay the foundation for saying that it may be time for Outside Lands to scale back or rethink the festival. It’s my belief that festivals, in general, are not for the faint of heart.
After nearly 5 years of watching journalists fend for their integrity, fight off accusations of being accused of “Fake News” reports, writing about disadvantaged communities, and two years of publication closures, layoffs, and contract renegotiations, I’m disappointed in learning that journalists were pushed further away from the festivities.
Outside Lands span less than a mile of Golden Gate Park from the Polo Field to Marx Meadow. Every year acts on up to six stages, hundreds of food vendors, merchants, and thousands of people from all around the world come to take part in the musical gathering.
This year, frankly, I’m a bit disappointed.
I’m not disappointed in the food nor in the performances. Regardless if I knew who was on stage or not, I loved every performer I was crammed into a sea of people to see.
Imagine that you are working a job and you are told that you need to stand in line for 20 minutes to relieve yourself for the entirety of your workday.
After nearly 5 years of watching journalists fend for their integrity, fight off accusations of being accused of “Fake News” reports, writing about disadvantaged communities, and two years of publication closures, layoffs, and contract renegotiations, I’m disappointed in learning that journalists were pushed further away from the festivities.
And every year has gotten successively worse.
This year, journalists and photojournalists were required to set up shop in between the VIP entrance (which had doubled in size, in my observation) and a line of Porta-Potties, behind the food vendors, farthest away from the stage. The general admission passes for media, didn’t grant access to restrooms while we worked, instead passes provided by festival organizers meant that journalists would be required to use the Porta-Potties.
This would seem like a small inconvenience on the surface. I get it: It’s a music festival or any number of events where journalists show up to tell other people’s stories, compliment the artist on their stage presence and make everyone else feel heard. Some photojournalists edit to perfection artists, highlight the smiling faces of the crowd and showcase the joy that going to a festival brings. We’re all supposed to be grateful for the access pass that so many of us would and have paid for.
But for one moment, imagine that you are working a job and you are told that you need to stand in line for 20 minutes to relieve yourself for the entirety of your workday. Then if you complained you would be penalized.
It’s my belief that festivals, in general, are not for the faint of heart.
According to some of the writers I’ve met, very few people have said anything or complained — out of fear that the publication or journalist would be denied media access to the events promoted in the future — or it felt like it was falling on deaf ears.
Most workplaces regardless of the environment have working standard requirements that are expected without fear of retribution or intimidation. Under any other circumstances, denying access to proper restrooms would be considered a work conditions violation.
I write this of my own volition and don’t say it to get any writer or publication ostracized. Whatever the reasons for the shift or the push, it’s not clear to me. It could be the changing climate or view of journalists, the use of social media, a need to recoup funds lost during the pandemic, or that a journalist ate from the sacred bowl of green M&M’s. Whatever the reasons that media has been pushed further down on the list of priorities, the basic necessity for a person to do their job should probably be a consideration somewhere.
The bare minimum is not having to pee in a dark hole of a portapotty after sundown trying to do a job that you love to do.
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