Pitchfork: “It was mind-boggling,” the 44-year-old college professor says over Zoom from her home in Jacksonville, Florida. She wondered, “Do I need to panic?” Then she glimpsed the sky outside and realized what was happening: Hail the size of golf balls—one person reported seeing stones the size of apples—was pummeling down, pelting concertgoers, and sending thousands scurrying for cover wherever they could find it.
2 comments:
Environmental activism was a large part of my high school experience because the climate crisis is an issue that I am very passionate about. The main reason why I committed to Carnegie Mellon is because I plan to pursue an additional major in Environmental and Sustainability Studies in order to learn how to make theatre a more sustainable industry. This is why this article particularly caught my attention. The anecdote that this article began with was very jarring and I can only imagine how stressful it must have been for everyone involved. It was very interesting to hear how partnerships have begun between festival coordinators and meteorologists as well as storm chasers to ensure the safety of these musical festivals and stay in constant communication. While this article was very intriguing and informative it felt a little bit tone deaf. There are so many national disasters happening around the world, like the recent wildfires in Maui wreaking havoc on Hawaii. To me, it feels like discussing the effect of climate change on musical festivals should not be an issue in the foreground.
I related very personally to this article as I both worked at an outdoor concert venue this past summer and hope to work in the concert industry again in my career. While I was not the one making the final weather call at my venue, being a part of the weather call conversation was very tricky. If a rain show was called, both the venue (ticket refunds) and artist (merchandise) lost money, however, if a rain cancellation wasn’t called and the situation became unsafe for patrons, we ultimately failed at our jobs. I found the quote from the article, “I jokingly tell people that I’ve become a meteorologist,” to be very relatable. I truly spent every morning this summer checking multiple radar apps for a corroborated forecast. There is no perfect science to calling weather shows and at least one patron will always be unhappy, but it is an inevitable part of putting on outdoor shows. In my opinion, safety must be the prioritization, and spending the extra day on rain protocol saved me multiple times this summer when the skies opened up mid set.
Post a Comment