BLUE RIDGE ROCK FESTIVAL | MUSIC LOVERS PARADISE
Photo by Chris Sturk
The Blue Rock Ridge festival is officially over and what a 4-day extravaganza it was. Though the festival was plagued with some logistical and communication issues, which we will talk about later, the overall experience of the festival was good and energized. The venue housed many talented bands in one location and over 30,000 people who were coming and going various times throughout the day. With bands such as Clutch, Sevendust, Offspring, We came as romans, Black Label Society and Anthrax with many others performing. It was a music lovers paradise. I was able to cover some amazing bands but due to car trouble I missed out on Saturday’s performance and had to cut out early on Sunday. Each band that I covered played incredibly energetic and powerful performances. The bands were excited to be there, and the weather was incredible. The venue was set up with 6 stages and bands were performing on each of those stages at different time frames through out the day. The venue provided plenty of water to all the spectators and in some cases even tossing water bottles into the crowds and spraying people down with water to help keep them cool. Police were on hand at every entrance and walking around inside the venue to help keep things as safe as possible and provide any assistance if needed. I only saw a few instances of music fans needing medical assistance either due to dehydration or drinking too much alcohol which these are common occurrences at any large music festival. The security staff in the pit was amazing and top notch. They were very attentive and constantly moving around the pit assessing possible issues and making sure those issues were taken care. They worked as a tight nit unit and fully communicated with each other which made me feel comfortable so I could focus on getting the pictures I needed. I personally saw the “pit” security team help assist or catch several crowd surfing music fans protecting them from hitting the ground with even one security guy getting injured in the process by putting himself under the falling patron so he would not hit the ground. His team members then ran over to him and helped get him out of the pit so he could get medical assistance. If there was a medical emergency, they would raise their arms up in a cross so the other security staff could see it and rush over to help. I even saw one “pit” security guard pull a woman who was crying for help out of the crowd, then picked her up and carried this crying woman who was clutching on to him for dear life out of the pit to seek medical attention. These men and woman were incredible, and I give high praise for their dedication and work ethic, it was top notch.
The guy in the baseball cap is the one that “Santa” fell on. Both were ok but the security staff member was taken out limping. He was taken to medical. These men and woman were doing a great job trying to protect crowd surfers from falling, even making sure they are under them as in this particular case. So the fans should be thankful and grateful they were there to catch them or they could of been hurt. Photo by Chris Sturk
Security making this a crowd surfer does not fall of the edge. Photo by Chris Sturk
All the bands who played were gracious, happy and excited to be there. The performance from each artist and band were outstanding so this next part has nothing to do with that. As you probably read or heard about through various news publications and social media accounts, there were some logistical and communication issues that plagued the Blue Rock Ridge Festival and unfortunately, I learned that quickly when I arrived. After two hours waiting in traffic, which honestly, I was ready for because it is a huge festival, and I did not get their until 12pm on Thursday the 9th. After I finally got my parking spot and went inside the venue to get my photo and media pass. I walked up to the “Will Call” tent and waited in line. After getting up to the front of the line I was told to talk to this festival worker regarding my photo pass. I stated my name and he said, “you are in the wrong area”, I was shocked by this because I was specifically told to go to the “Will Call” tent to pick up my pass. He was not sure where I needed to go but pointed me to another tent right next to the “Will Call” tent. So, I went over to that tent and stood in the long line and started to wait. The tent I was standing in front of had no signage stating what the tent was for, so I did not know if it was for media, complaints, help or whatever. Finally, a woman came out and stated, “is anywhere here from media?”, I raised my hand and walked over. She checked my ID and verified I said who I was and gave me my photo pass. After I got my pass, I texted a fellow media photographer letting him know where he needs to get his pass. He was also told different information and went to another tent instead. This is where I could see that the festival staff was provided either limited information or things were not communicated properly to the festival workers. Once everything was finalized, I went through security check and entered the festival. I walked around the festival and could not find the “Media” tent. I asked not one, not two but 8 different festival staff employees and 5 security staff if they knew where the media tent was and none of them had any idea what I was talking about. I started to become frustrated because there was yet again no signage pointing me in any direction or even a sign stating, “MEDIA TENT HERE”. I finally bumped into a festival worker who was kind enough to take me to the media tent. After I got there, I asked another festival worker what the Wi-Fi password was. The reason I asked for this is because in our approval email it was stated “Wifi will be available in the tent for working media to file stories and upload pictures”. So assumed there was someone that could provide that password to me, well I was very wrong in that assumption. After asking yet again upwards of 6 different festival workers I was finally directed to a trailer that, if I remember correctly, had something to do with the production staff. I walked up and met another festival worker who I then stated “Hi, my name is Chris, and I am with f28 Music Media Live, we were told there is a Wi-Fi password so we can upload our pictures and get some articles written. Can someone provide me with that password?”. She looked at me as if I had two heads, then glanced inside the door of the trailer and someone said something to her. She then looked at me and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, there is no password”. I politely said thank you and walked away. I became increasingly frustrated because I was under the impression, we the media, would have a place that we could set up our laptop, transfer the photographs, do quick edits, upload the pictures to our servers and write articles with our day-to-day coverage. After realizing that is not the case I walked back to my car and put my laptop in the trunk of my car as well as my external drives. Now just to make a point, I have not photographed one band yet because no one knew any information, so I spent most of my time trying to find someone that knew what was going on.
Atreyu performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Once I got back to the venue after dropping my laptop and portable drives off, I started to look at the bands that were performing and at what times they were performing by using the Blue Ridge Rock Festival mobile app. Unfortunately, this also became a hassle because there was basically very spotty cell signal or no signal at all in the area so the app would not open sometimes, you had to be in the perfect spot for it to open. Once I got the app to work, I started to walk around looking for particular stages. Now the media was able to walk around the back part of the stages because it was faster for us to go from stage to stage that way and quickly reach other performances. The only thing was that none of the stages had signs on the back of them stating what the name of the stage was. The only one I saw that had a sign behind the stage was the “liquid death stage”, and that sign was super small and taped up to the banister. This became frustrating as you are trying to run from stage to stage to make sure you are covering certain bands or artists. I was able to get to the stages by either walking out in front of the stage to see its name or ask a security personal what the name of the stage was. The last thing I found increasingly frustrating is the amount of people standing in the pit. I saw several people with no photo passes, I repeat no photo passes just standing there with a camera taking pictures. This made it very difficult to move around and what is the point of us having passes if you are just letting people in without them?! I saw people with photo passes taking people in the pit with them who did not have passes, I don’t know if they were friends of theirs, but it made it very difficult for us who went through the proper channels for approval to do our job since the pit was more and more jam packed with people that should not have been in the pit to begin with.
Fever 333 performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Overall, the festival had some incredibly memorable performances by some of the best bands in the world. Clutch kicked ass, Sevendust dominated the stage and Fever 333 made the crowd run wild with energy. So many great performances, it is hard to pinpoint them all. The energy was high, and each band put their best foot forward and performed with heart and appreciation. If I were to suggest anything to the people running next years festival is first, make sure you have signage that is large and easily visible stating what each tent is and using arrows guiding people on which direction they need to go. I would also suggest making sure the festival staff have full knowledge of the area they are working in. If there is supposed to be a password provided to media then there should be staff members who can provide that to us, or they can send it in an email. I think for thousands of lucky fans this was a great experience, and it really was amazing seeing so many people having so much fun and enjoying music again. I think the festival has a great heart and is attempting to really bring together bands from various genres of music and bring music fans an incredible experience. There are somethings that need to be fixed and adjusted for the next one and hopefully the staff and management are listening to us in that regard but the festival is a beautiful thing and watching music fans smile and dance was a really great thing to see.
~Lead Photographer and Editor Chris Sturk
Security catching a crowd surfer protecting her from falling. Photo by Chris Sturk
Anthrax performing at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Black Label Society performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
From Ashes to New preforming at the Blue Ridge Rock festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Skillet performing at the Blue Rock Ridge festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Sevendust performing at the Blue Ridge Rock festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
I Prevail performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
We Came as Romans performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Clutch performing at the Blue Rock Ridge Festival 2021. Photo by Chris Sturk
Did you go to the festival? What bands did you see and what were your favorite performances? Let us know by either commenting, sending us a twitter message or even an email! We hope you had a great time at the festival and saw some of these incredibly charged and energetic performances from some of the best bands touring today.