After it being pushed back and ultimately canceled back in 2020, it finally happened this past weekend. So many people were bashing the festival and spamming their socials about it being fake and no one on the flyer would actually be showing up. Now you have countless people wishing they had bought tickets after believing it was a Fyre Fest wannabe. This was the first edition and was definitely filled with mishaps and areas that the organizers fell short and could have done better. Let’s review!
When: May 14th, 2022
Where: Las Vegas Festival Grounds
Time: 11AM to 12AM
Temperatures: High 90’s during the day and Low 80’s during the night.
First of all, we knew it was going to be a crazy hot day. We started drinking lots of water before the weekend to make sure we didn’t dehydrate. Having gone to plenty of festivals in the past, I already knew the drill. Hydrate. Hydrate. HYDRATE. Even if you know there are free water stations, still hydrate before you get there. Many times, you will probably skip on getting water during the early hours so that you can see your favorite performer. You risk overheating, fainting (like many did), headaches and/or worse, a full on heatstroke. All that can ruin your experience. For context, we stayed at the Resorts World hotel and walked it to the festival. Lots of walking was involved, even if it was nearby.
Back to the festival! We wanted to catch Franke J and Baby Bash, so we planned to start heading from our hotel at around 10AM. That gave us plenty of time to walk without rushing and look around to see what the setup looked like at the grounds. It didn’t take us long at all to get there. Gates weren’t open yet and opened at 11am. There was already a decent sized crowd waiting. You’re already standing in black asphalt at this point with the sun beating down on you so early. Once they opened the gates, people started running to get in another line to have your ticket scanned. We had VIP tickets and they had separate lines for us, which is ALWAYS nice. I move out of the way so that I wouldn’t get pushed by those who were running. We walked up and it took about 10 min to get through the metal detectors and out tickets scanned. They prohibited any bags/backpacks that were not see-through on the website and security merely looked at them and it they were see-through, they didn’t check much else. Which was concerning since the bags don’t go through the metal detectors.
Once inside, you can hear the music playing, see a giant arch decorated witht the theme colors and “Lovers and Friends” at the top. To the right, there was a decent sized merch booth which was already packed with people. On the left, there were maybe 5-6 coach buses lined up and later found out it was for us to sit in to cool down. In the center, there was an airbrush booth where we could get our merch customized. I thought this was such a cool thing they offered because who didn’t have an airbrushed t-shirt from those times! It was nostalgic for sure. We got in line for both and then headed to the main stage area. One of our group members got in line for a piña colada and had to wait because they weren’t ready.
On our way to the VIP area for the main stages, you had lots of food stands and some cover from the sun. It definitely wasn’t much or enough for the amount of people expected. Many of the vendors were not ready, but managed to find a couple to grab some food. It was called “Tacos before Vatos” and I ordered their burrito. It was really good and got full, but it was a good thing because we skipped breakfast. Don’t skip breakfast! Now, we finally headed to the VIP area and you had to scan your RFID on your bracelet to get in and there were security personnel checking. Inside the VIP area, most of the asphalt was covered with turf, there was another shaded area with picnic benches and more bar height tables and chairs that were not shaded. There was a decent amount of bars and food vendors and could’ve got my food in here. They had a free water station too, but the water was warm the whole time and one of the stations ran out of water at one point. There were bathrooms in the back and were better than port-a-potties. They also had air conditioning and the water from the sink was way cooler. I took a couple breaks in there to escape the heat.
The main stage was actually 2 stages right next to each other. One would be setup while the other had a performance and the sound would switch between the two. It was a cool idea. By the time we found some chairs to sit and eat, all of the shaded spaces were full. It was just before 12PM! We sucked it up and waited for Frankie J and Baby Bash. They were suppose to come on like at 12:30PM but they didn’t begin until 12:40PM and Jon B never came on before them. Once the artists started coming on, we quickly realized that switching sound between the stages was a terrible idea. Maybe it was just executed very poorly. I blame the sound engineers. I think it was during Lloyd’s set that they cut him off mid song on the Lovers stage and Ying Yang Twins came on abruptly on the Friends stage. You could see Lloyd was scrambling as it happened and had no idea what was happening. When they cut over to the Friends stage, it wasn’t even a clean cutover. It was just flat out bad and sounded like something that would happen at a house party or something.Some performers were performing already and their sound wasn’t on. They kept doing this to most of the artists and seemed to favor some over others as they weren’t cut off when they went over their time. I get that they were behind, but it was just bad how it was all handled. For sure, they didn’t do that to Timbaland/Snoop, Neyo, Ja Rule/Ashanti, Ciara or TLC. I didn’t see some, but they did it to a few others I can’t remember anymore. I just remember being upset how shady they did the artists.
We headed over to the other stages around 2PM to see 112, Too Short and Warren G. Luckily, they also had a VIP viewing area for the 2 other stages too with their own bathrooms and bars. Again, the tiny shaded areas was already packed and had to squeeze in to the tiniest space of shade to escape the sun. Even just for a bit and even just for half my body. Once 112 was done, one of us went to get some Gatorade (all we had was hot water) and found out they had already run out of Gatorade everywhere. The heat really sucked, but we took a break in this tiny shade and then jumped back out in the crowd for Warren G. After that, we applied sunscreen for the 3rd time. It was so hot that my iPhone overheated 3 times while I was recording a video! We made our way back to the main stages and could see people not having a good time. There were people hiding from the sun under any sliver of shade they could find. People were throwing up and just looked like they were suffering of heat exhaustion. I was already 3 shades darker! Even though I covered my shoulders with a shirt, had a bucket hat and sunglasses on. Even then, we planned on staying until the very last performance. We got more food and set ourselves to be able to see JaRule/Ashanti and Ciara. The sun finally started setting during Ashanti and felt relief from the sun, finally!
Once the sun was completely set, all we were suffering from then was our feet hurting. It was now 8PM and we hadn’t sat down since 3PM. By 9PM, we started contemplating leaving early, but TLC was on and it would soon be time for Usher, Ludacris and Lil Jon. We started noticing a lot of very rude people crowding around us. We were on the Friends stage and someone pushed through the crowd at one point to force their way closer to the front. I didn’t want to let them ruin my night so we moved the back of the crowd in the VIP area, near the barrier for the GA crowd. Then we realized that the stage they would be performing on was nowhere near being finished. So we went to sit in the turf area while we waited once TLC was done.
We sat there for maybe 5 min talking when out of no where a stampede of people start coming at us! My first thought was that people were running toward the stage because the show was starting. However, that quickly went away and terror set in as I realized people were running for their lives. I just saw fear and we immediately got up before we got trampled and ran with everyone. People started hiding behind the bar area and that terrified me. I immediately thought we were in an active shooter situation. I asked if anyone knew what was happening and no one was really able to answer, just fear on their faces. So we headed towards the exit that led us on to Las Vegas Blvd. and we saw security personnel telling everyone that there was an emergency situation and that we needed to evacuate as they told us to exit. I was shaking from the adrenaline of not knowing what was happening and feeding off of everyone’s fear. On our walk back to the hotel, we heard people saying different things. Some said it was an active shooter inside, others said it was a fight or that someone got stabbed and that it wasn’t something that happened inside but a shooting that happened outside of the festival. I did not hear any gun shots fired and there was no music playing from the main stage at this time. The only thing I heard as everyone ran was something like someone banging on some tubes. Maybe from the stage? I don’t know, but I was shaken up and many others were having panic attacks. Our friends managed to find us somehow and they told us how people were trampled by the GA crowd in to the VIP area and gates falling on people who were sitting on the ground. I saw lots of people with scrapes and one person who lost their shoe in the chaos.
Once back in the safety of our room, we saw they ended up continuing with the show. There was just a brief mention of an incident on both the jumbo screens at the stages and a post on IG. They completely down played the whole thing and moved on while people were injured and emotionally traumatized. Even if it was a false alarm, people got hurt and I for sure wasn’t going back into that crowd. I did feel like a change in the ambiance once Ciara finished her performance. I’m just glad we were safe and hope that those who were injured heal quickly. I think a lot of us are traumatized by the amount of mass shootings that happen nowadays. Right after the festival, I found out there was a shooting in Buffalo and in Orange County, CA. If you are struggling with what you experienced, don’t hesitate to reach out to a support system to help.
It’s pretty frustrating because my S/O was suppose to go to this event to try and be ok around large crowds. They suffer from PTSD already from going on 7 tours overseas and this definitely DID NOT HELP. Instead they said it felt normal to them to jump into combat action and assess an external threat; went into straight soldier mode. That makes me sad that not even at home there’s peace. Anyway, I am rambling now, but it’s safe to say that I probably won’t be going to any large events like this for a bit. It’s very sad for me because I’ve been going to many events since 2010. I’ve been to EDC in LA/Las Vegas, Nocturnal, Escape, EDC Orlando, Beyond, Defqon.1 in the Netherlands and others and not once did I experience anything like this. Actually, I think I’ll just avoid non-EDM fests. Even though it could have been better in many ways, we still had fun. I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, just realistic and who am I kidding? Rave to the GRAVE…responsibly.
Check out my YouTube channel for videos from the event. I’ll be uploading them some time soon. 🙂
-talie