I have been going to 98 Rock’s Livestock for years, do to complications they could no longer hold this event, but this year they were launching a new event they called Rockfest. There were so many good bands playing there, my girlfriend and I were quite excited to see.

Dropping Daylight
Blackstone Cherry
Bullet for my Valentine
Saliva
Daughtry
Puddle of Mudd
Chevelle
Papa Roach
Buckcherry
Three Days Grace
Hinder

So we woke up excited to go, got ready and met up with my brother and his girlfriend but nothing could have prepared us for the day at hand. We get there and we manage to make it through a few bands, and my brothers girlfriend starts getting a bit sick to her stomach and light headed. So they go the EMT tent. She was dehydrated, so the EMT’s got her some water and a damp towel to put over her skin, it wasn’t long till the rest of us started feeling the same way, it was extremely hot out and none of us had drank anything all day we were all trying to avoid the insane lines. By the way the EMT’s had told her there were only 10 of them for the entire event. 16,000+ people in the blazing heat, not to mention this a rock concert, pits etc, with 10 EMT’s staffed.

So my girlfriend and I venture off to try to find drinks, we stop at almost every food stand, we are told they do not have beverages, which I found quite shocking every event I have ever been to like this food vendors sell drinks as well. Finally I reach one who gives me the truth, He pointed at his coolers underneath their tables and said “sorry buddy, we brought drinks we were told we couldn’t sell them you have to go get in line over there”. He points to an extremely long line that stretches across the venue, there were 3 main places that anyone could tell sold beverages. All of which stretched from one side of the field to the other. People were waiting in line for over 2-3 hours to get to the front. It was mass confusion, no one knew whether they needed tickets for the water first (the ticket lines were just as long, so you might have to wait in both. People just looked extremely sick, people were passing out in line waiting for water, my girlfriend and I had waited a bit over an hour without moving more then a few feet in this huge line. We were getting pretty bad, so we decided hey we will just sacrifice and loose out on one band. We’ll just head out the store get some drinks and come back.

So we get to the front gate to find out if we leave we are not permitted to re-enter. I mean this is shocking, and we weren’t the only ones at the gate complaining. There were hundreds of people. Standing around the gates, girls crying because they felt so sick but they wanted to be able to come back. People were complaining as well. There actually was no water, some of them had waited in line for over 2 hours to be told that there wasn’t water available. Someone really screwed up when organizing this. The very least they could do is let people leave to get drinks and come back. We all still had tickets. Instead your options were stay there and pass out, or leave for good. Many were just leaving for good.

After about 30 minutes had passed from the time we reached the gate, and tried to get contact with someone who could allow people to leave and come back we all decided screw this, it’s not worth our health and left. So as we are walking out my brother makes a comment. “I hope you guys have body bags”. A uniformed officer, from Tampa FL replies “Grow the fuck up”. A police officer. So I flipped. I told him he is a police officer, not a child, people are suffering here, easy for him to say grow up, he is standing under a shaded tent with a bottle of water in his hand. The staff were leaving and bringing back bottles of water to their coworkers.

I wasn’t impressed with the police department, the stadium, or 98 Rock. The parking lot was just as bad, people wondering around looking drunk, they were just dehydrated. These people were so out of it they were unable to find their cars, hell it took us 45 minutes to find ours. People were passing out in the middle of the parking lot.

I doubt highly they are going to be giving money back for tickets. All I know is from this point forth I’m boycotting 98 Rock. I will never listen to their radio station, nor attend another one of their events, and I will encourage all my friends to do the same. They aren’t new to this, they had 15 Livestocks. They know how hot it gets, and the things that happen when people get dehydrated.