Say your piece about Rockfest '11

The Kansas City parks department is taking public comments about whether Rockfest should return to Penn Valley Park next year. This year's all-day heavy-rock event turned the park into a mud bath.  This was posted Friday on KansasCity.com via reporter Matt Campbell:

Heidi Downer, the department’s marketing director, said that no decision has yet been made to enter into another contract with the music fest but that AEG Live Productions would like to return.

The “open houses” will be from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Wednesday and from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Penn Valley Park. Those unable to attend may e-mail comments to [email protected].

Comments

[joeboo]

They should have it out at the race track in Kansas. I saw Metallica, Korn, & Kid Rock at the race track in St Louis(on the Illinois side) about a decade ago and it was the perfect spot for 60-80,000 people. Plenty of room to spread out. Bleachers to sit on around the edges when you got tired from standing around all day, great drainage setups in case of rain, it won't turn into a massive mud pit, etc.

Would be perfect for an all-day festival. Plus there is actually enough parking out there for 30-40,000 cars, unlike around Penn Valley.

[Steve J]

My question is what did the place look like Memorial Weekend? If the place looked fine, they should come back.

[Green]

Take it to the river front!

[The Rock needs to let it go]

I've been to two Rockfest shows at Penn Valley Park and would go again (for the right lineup), but I think the location is poor for that many people. If they capped it at 25,000 or 30,000 people, that would help.
But the major issues would remain: Lack of parking and poor sightlines to the main stage.
The parking would easily be addressed by a move to Arrowhead or the Speedway, and a location with elevated seats would address the sightline issue.
But people-watching at Rockfest is almost as much of an attraction as the music, and putting everyone in seats (like at Arrowhead) may ruin it.
Plus, doing a second stage may not be practical at one of those locations.

[KCJones]

Whomever suggested Riverfront Park could be on to something. There is quite a lot of real estate there. I'm not sure if there is enough room for parking AND a couple of stages, but you could certainly put a stage on either end of the East - West axis. There is plenty of room for the crowd to spill over into the non-park area to the south of the park. Of course, you'd have to keep the freaks out of the river, but other than that....

[Zippy The Wonder Fag]

What really pisses me off is they had to cancel this year's annual Fairy Parade, er - excuse me, I mean this year's Gay Pride Fest. Why do the newspapers have to call it the Pride Fest? Can't they just come out and print 'Gay Pride Fest'? People are thilly!

[MetalHEAD]

Suggestions:

1. Find another radio station to sponsor this shabang.

2. Find a dozen completely different bands....maybe NOT Godsmack, SHINEEEEdown, etc, ad nauseum.....

3. Call it something completely different.

4. THEN........cancel it because it's way overdone and smells bad.

[Green]

The River Front is an interesting idea, I forget who mentioned it on here but it seems like a good spot for a show. It would get people out of the neighborhoods and away from the memorial. I suppose there could still be an issue with the grass but river front grass seems less important than the memorial grass.

The links below are a rough mock up of the two sites.

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/6643/twoq.jpg

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/6139/threeu.jpg

[mankvill]

my 2 cents: stop getting crappy bands.

[Green]

Maybe rock is dead

[yawn]

Maybe they should set up an oil rig on the site and try to drill for oil. Then it could explode and flood the whole site with oil. Then they will sue the company, which will go bancrupt and only pay the city $1.00, sound familiar?

This is what happened when the historic Union Station was ruined when they allowed that glass/mirror BS building to be built next to it.

yeahRIGHT!!! FOR SURE the corrupt city wants to hear what we think, what a crock of BS. KCMO is run by a bunch of corrput monkeys. How about they just pay the bribes and get on with it, but please stop this dog and pony show.

[CH]

I've been to 9 Rockfests and have vowed to not go again unless they move it to a better place. Arrowhead or the Speedway would both be great places. Those that want to be up near the stages still can be, and those of us with aging knees can sit if we want to. The parking and facilities are designed to hold large crowds.

As far a the concern about two stages, they could do what they did at Lazerfest in Iowa. Have two side by side stages and alternate bands. You still can start early in the day with the lesser known bands and continue to the headliners. It worked great at Lazerfest because you got to see every band and didn't even have to move and there was basically no down time between bands. At Rockfest where it's practically impossible to see every band.