Freak Fest gets iced (temporarily)
I leave for a week, and I swear, it's like the whole world falls apart. Freak Fest 2005 has been postponed and I'm like, geez, if it weren't for bad luck entertainment in this town wouldn't have any luck at all.
My story on all this should be in tomorrow's Californian. Chris Fleming, the president of CK Entertainment, which puts on Freak Fest, has vowed that he will try to keep the show in Kern County even if it means that for 2005 he might not be able to have it here. Seems there are some issues about how large the event is growing at such a rapid place. Chris told me they were expecting as many as 20,000 people at this year's show.
But for folks who still want to hear Adema, Kottonmouth Kings, HEDpe, Home Grown and Guttermouth, the show MUST go on. KRAB radio has put up for the nearly 50 bands who were supposed to play Freak Fest to play a two day show at The Dome on Saturday, April 23 and Stramler Park Sunday, April 24. Local promoter Tim Gardea is putting it together. It'll be the cover of next week's Thursday Eye section.
This whole situation kind of annoys me. Even though I'm more of a jazz-R&B-indie-rock kind of girl, I liked the fact that Freak Fest was going on because it was good for Kern County to have a rock festival of its own. Especially one with so much growth potential. Plus CK Entertinament has gone two years without any major incidents surrounding the festival and the fellas running the show seemed to have their head on straight. This year they were even moving to make it a bit more "family friendly." (Naked babes on hot rods for after-hours, bro.) This really has the potential to give Kern County some rock n' roll clout. And believe me, we need all the clout we can get. I like the B-town, but folks outside of the Golden Empire think we're a bunch of ass-backwards hicks down here.
Anyway, I hope Chris Fleming and the county are able to work this thing out. This, in the long term, could be a great money-maker, promotional tool, fund raiser, "you-name-it" for Bakersfield, the Famoso Raceway and Kern County.
My story on all this should be in tomorrow's Californian. Chris Fleming, the president of CK Entertainment, which puts on Freak Fest, has vowed that he will try to keep the show in Kern County even if it means that for 2005 he might not be able to have it here. Seems there are some issues about how large the event is growing at such a rapid place. Chris told me they were expecting as many as 20,000 people at this year's show.
But for folks who still want to hear Adema, Kottonmouth Kings, HEDpe, Home Grown and Guttermouth, the show MUST go on. KRAB radio has put up for the nearly 50 bands who were supposed to play Freak Fest to play a two day show at The Dome on Saturday, April 23 and Stramler Park Sunday, April 24. Local promoter Tim Gardea is putting it together. It'll be the cover of next week's Thursday Eye section.
This whole situation kind of annoys me. Even though I'm more of a jazz-R&B-indie-rock kind of girl, I liked the fact that Freak Fest was going on because it was good for Kern County to have a rock festival of its own. Especially one with so much growth potential. Plus CK Entertinament has gone two years without any major incidents surrounding the festival and the fellas running the show seemed to have their head on straight. This year they were even moving to make it a bit more "family friendly." (Naked babes on hot rods for after-hours, bro.) This really has the potential to give Kern County some rock n' roll clout. And believe me, we need all the clout we can get. I like the B-town, but folks outside of the Golden Empire think we're a bunch of ass-backwards hicks down here.
Anyway, I hope Chris Fleming and the county are able to work this thing out. This, in the long term, could be a great money-maker, promotional tool, fund raiser, "you-name-it" for Bakersfield, the Famoso Raceway and Kern County.
posted by Danielle Belton @ 2:18 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:27 PM,
Anonymous said…
Well a lot of vendors got screwed in San Bernardino freak fest 2005 we show up Sunday morning and the show had been cancelled. Maybe lack of promotion or poor planning. but the night before was very weak the projection of 17000 was over estimated by 16500 every one took a hit specially the bands that took time in there schedule to drive down 4 hours pay for hotel food.
Some vendors paid thousands of dollars for banners to be up for the opening of the show to find out that they weren’t even up till complaining at 3 o’clock and on Sunday they were on the floor all stepped on. Some booths got stolen on sat night.
Hopefully CHRIS FLEMING will be man enough to at least return half of the money that’s due for the vendors For Sunday.
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