You see, the festival is all about being a "sustainable festivarian". In other words, be kind to the environment - use reusable containers. Of course all the food was on paper plates, beer was sold in plastic cups etc. I guess there's a limit isn't there? Anyways, they touted that from the stage all the time.
The local bars were always busy and because the FIFA World Cup was going on, there was a lot of interest in the games being played down in Brazil. For me, I just downloaded an app for my phone from FIFA and followed the USA games that way.
I say we walked most of the time, but I ended up with a really sore left foot from the crummy old shoes I brought to walk around it. So I took the busses whenever possible from about Friday night on. We didn't join the throng taking tarps in to stake our claim on choice watching spots. Since there were only three of us we were able to find little wedges of space between the tarps and met some interesting people that way too.
Have I mentioned that Colorado, like Washington state, has legalized pot? Well, it was quite evident both in the town and really evident at the venue. While there were cops at the entrance, the only searches were for alcohol. Like most events, they want you to buy their alcohol, not bring in your own.
So there was this constant odor all around you. I suppose one could conclude that the good crowd behavior was due to everyone being stoned. We weren't (as far as I know) and many others weren't smoking either, but you couldn't get away from it. Still, it's better than cigarette smoke in my opinion. It's not as acidic. Perhaps because of the mellow crowd or maybe because bluegrass music is happy music, there were no incidents at the event as far as I'm aware of.
The most violence exhibited was the crowd throwing marshmallows around, which we participated in too. Pretty funny really. One group not far from us had a big slingshot and were tossing them pretty far. Eventually there was this constant amount of marshmallows in the air. Quite a sight.
Now, about the music: It was awesome! They had a phenomenal sound system that was not being overdriven. Just good clean, clear sound. You can tell there's a lot of power available, but not being used at it's fullest extent. Just the way I like to listen. Dan, Bill, and I agreed it was superbly run. I will list each act that we saw and my impressions of them starting Thursday and continuing on to Sunday night.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
