Mechelle Grissom, a Denver-based traveling nurse, picked her granddaughter up from Denver International Airport after she had traveled from St. Louis and then hit Interstate 70 through the Rocky Mountains, bound for the Grand Valley.
Bound for Country Jam.
The purpose of this excursion was so they could both attend their first ever Country Jam. Before even seeing a single performer, Grissom has already decided it will also be her last.
Grissom is among the many dissatisfied Country Jam attendees who gathered Thursday for the music festival but instead waited outside in intermittent rain, blustering wind and muddy ground, only for all of the performances to be canceled. The night’s headliner, Parker McCollum, ultimately didn’t perform because of “sustained and high wind gusts”, per the venue.
A major storm moved through the Grand Valley on Thursday that saw 1.07 inches of rain and hail fall on Grand Junction in the span of an hour. The storm downed trees and flooded streets.
However, not all of the Grand Valley was impacted by the storm, as residents in Fruita, Clifton and Palisade largely only experienced wind gusts and light rain.
Grissom, who spoke to The Daily Sentinel about her experience, said that, while winds were persistent throughout the day, it only rained twice during the afternoon, with any hail being tiny.
The problem with Country Jam on Thursday wasn’t the weather, Grissom said, but rather “a lack of planning and communication” by the festival’s organizers. People signed up for text updates from the festival, but updates could only be found on Country Jam’s Facebook page every few hours.
“The updates were sporadic and delayed. You had to go on Facebook to get any information, then the posts were several hours apart, and you got more information from the thread of people commenting,” Grissom said.
Grissom’s story and the many comments on Country Jam’s Facebook posts by frustrated attendees paint a picture of confusion and uncertainty that ultimately culminated with McCollum’s set being canceled around 10:20 p.m., around a half hour before he was supposed to go on.
“Tough, man. I apologize,” McCollum said in a video uploaded to his Facebook story Thursday night. “We came all the way here. Our crew loaded in at 7 a.m. and we were looking forward to a great show tonight, but Mother Nature had other ideas. I apologize.... It’s just a bummer all the way around.”
HECTIC PARKING
Leading up to that cancellation, attendees reported hectic parking situations that lacked clear direction or planning, with Grissom saying that she was originally parked in the muddy south entrance lot despite having a west entrance parking pass. Once inclement weather began and both attendees and staff were advised to seek shelter in their cars, matters only worsened.
“While we’re on this yellow alert that security and staff are all supposed to be in these little huts sheltering in place, they’re out there playing frisbee in the parking lot and won’t let us into our parking spots,” Grissom said.
Grissom and her granddaughter waited along with many others to enter the gates before the rain began. In the two hours of waiting, they and most others went through the one water bottle they were allowed to bring into the venue with them. This two hours of waiting had followed two more hours of waiting to park in what was ultimately the wrong lot.
The two returned later after seeing an update on the Country Jam Facebook page that the gates would open around 7:30 p.m. They left their hotel in Fruita and returned to Mack, where they waited two hours to park — again, but at least in the correct lot this time — only to learn an hour after finally getting in that McCollum’s show would not go on.
“‘Organizers’ doesn’t fit the description of these event people because nothing was organized. Even giving us more updates would have been more appreciated,” Grissom said.
“The people that took the shuttles, the last shuttle dropped them off at 6 p.m. and wasn’t returning again until 11 to pick people up to take them back from the venue. These people were stuck. We were talking to people who were out there for six, seven or eight hours, standing in the rain with no car, their one bottle of water they were going to be allowed (was empty).... There was no access to food or drink until they reopened the gates at 7:30, then you could go in and get something from the vendors, but you never heard any music.”
UPSET FANS
A glance at the comments on Country Jam’s Facebook page reveals other attendee complaints. For example, those with V.I.P. passes were supposed to receive free food and drink throughout the day. However, because lightning strikes in the area continuously delayed the opening of the gates, none of them had access to that food and drink throughout the day.
A common theme of the comments are that text updates attendees were supposed to receive were simply never sent, hence everyone’s reliance on Facebook to stay up to date.
“My favorite part was that Country Jam continued to take people’s money for parking and passes right up to the minute they canceled,” one attendee commented.
“We haven’t sold food in two days! Not one single customer yet,” commented an owner of a food vendor at the event. “And get this: they opened the gates late last night, last minute, without telling the vendors, so we didn’t get the notice until after they posted it on FB that they opened.”
One comment that read, “Like this if you feel scammed,” received 93 likes as of Friday afternoon.
Grissom said that, earlier Friday, an advertisem*nt for an alcoholic product that was sponsoring the festival was posted to the Country Jam Facebook page, with the advertisem*nt asking attendees if they were having a good time so far. After a heavy ratio of negative comments, the post was deleted.
As of 3:40 p.m. on Friday, the gates had opened for the second day of the festival as more stormy weather loomed in the region, with attendees hopeful they would get their money’s worth this time around.
