Labor Day weekend brought Philadelphia’s most anticipated music festival, the second annual Made In America festival, sponsored by Budweiser. For two days, attendees could get their freakum dresses on with Beyoncé or rock out with Imagine Dragons. With old-school performers like Public Enemy and hot new artists like Kendrick Lamar, Benjamin Franklin Freeway was certainly the place to be if you were a music lover.
Last year, Made In America headlined with Kanye West and JAY-Z after the premiere of their collaboration album Watch The Throne. Despite the great music, the festival lacked organization, food, hydration stations and electrical outlets for concert-goers. This year, Made In America promised all of that and more. The festival had received such awesome reviews that they expanded the number of tickets and attendees to almost 60,000 people.
Attendees had beer at their disposal as long as they could pay $11 per drink and had an ID showing that they were 21 years old. With over 60,000 attendees and a limited amount of space, it was hard to avoid the drunk people.
“It was disgusting. The music was awesome, but you couldn’t move around a lot and people were throwing up everywhere,” says Juliana, 19. “And the same people were going up for beer over and over again and no one turned them away.”
Juliana attended the festival both days and was very disappointed with the lack of security and safety measures.
“We were in line to go in on day two and the people in front of us were obviously drunk. They still got let in,” she says.
With tickets ranging from $150-165 for regular two-day admission to more than $300 for V.I.P. tickets, were festival goers paying for the performers or for organization?
They sure were not paying for both.
Post-concert hype was little about the performers and mostly about how horrible the atmosphere was. People were seen throwing up right in the middle of the grass where people had to stand and publicly urinating in a crowd full of people waiting to see their favorite performers, due to the Port-a-Potties overflowing mid-festival.
The hydration stations, where people could fill up their water bottles for free, had 45 minute-long lines and you were limited to filling up only one water bottle at a time.
“I only got to fill my water bottle up once because the line was so long. I ended up buying a bottle of water for four dollars,” says Amber, 19.
While Made In America provided the music for the money, they didn’t provide the safety. With so many intoxicated people stumbling around and little security to control them, it was difficult for the sober concertgoers to enjoy themselves.
“I definitely won’t be attending next year if they don’t improve their security,” says Juliana.
I have to agree. If you cannot fully enjoy the concert, then why even go? Festivals should be open and have room for fun, but shouldn’t be limited to those who can afford to guzzle pricey beers all day.