NOTE: In video I said Boston Calling did not put on many hip hop acts and that was WRONG. They have put on Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, etc in the past)
As festival goers piled into Boston Calling, our Beloved host Adam Lew decided to get some footage. Little did Adam know, the weekend would be mired in controversy (cue dramatic music).
Day 1 Adam gets to learn the lay of the land. One of the things he notices are the water fountains and the short (for now) lines for them. He does get a little lost navigating the festival and getting to his (safe) media tent. This problem navigating the festival grounds will become a problem for many more later on.
He also gets to talk to old friends of the show Tomo and Alxne as well as see Kei Perform (footage in video above). Kei, who just recently came out with a new single titled “hello”, did a great job and got the crowd going as always. Ed Sheeran ended the night of day 1.
Day 2 (8:48 in video) Adam talks to some of the restaurants including the Mac and Cheese Bar, Jaju Parogi, and El Jefe’s Taqueria. He actually got to learn a lot about their preparation process for the festival. (interviews in video above). Adam ate some (free) food from El Jefe’s Taqueria and some food from Dumpling Daughter.
He also got to see Cakeswagg perform, who recently came out with single “Bad Bitch Link Up”. She also did an amazing job. Fun fact is that Cakeswagg had a sign language translator on the stage with her. The translator is one of her best friend’s Ashley who attends Galaudette University, one of the top deaf education schools in the country.
One thing that stuck out in particular on Day 2 were the cowboy hats. Oh boy there was an abundance. Boston Calling must have made a killing on those! The hats and the country theme were mainly due to the headliner “Tyler Childers”, who ended the night.
Day 3 (16:59) of Boston Calling was what I would call “Chapelle Roan day”. There were people waiting outside super early in the morning just to see her. All of these people coming for her, Meg The Stallion, Hozier, and The Killers led to an intense overcrowding issue.
The water lines were huge, trash was everywhere, porter potties were overcrowded (and according to social media comments, over flooded). Half the hospitalizations for the weekend occured on Day 3. Adam was nice and safe in the media tent but don’t you worry, he got some footage of the crowd, which is in the video above.
Some of the things he says(in the video) that Boston Calling could have done better are:
1. More signs so people knew where things were. In Boston Calling’s “apology” they state that they were under capacity, which technically speaking is true. But everybody was so squished into one area (because that’s where the artists that people paid $200+ to see were) while there were other areas of the campus underused. .
2. Stop selling tickets after 30,000. Obvious one. May hurt your bottom line short term but in the long run would have helped avoid controversy. Learn from Astroworld.
3. Move one of the big acts from Sunday to Saturday. I do not think Boston Calling projected the recent virality of both Chapelle Roan and Meg The Stallion and I know they schedule the acts far in advance so this one may have been difficult to do. However, there was definitely room for more people to come either Friday or Saturday.
4. Catered more to the increased demand. I am sure Boston Calling has projected attendance for each day, especially on day of. So if they heard more people were coming they should have called more food vendors/water trucks. I am sure, with the money that they were making, it would have been worth it and helped them avoid a PR controversy.
5. Don’t delete instagram comments. Now we all know you were trying to cover something up. Made the situation much worse.
Why it’s important
Festival goers deserve a safe environment, and if things do go wrong, they deserve transparency.
There have been many large crowd events that have ended in absolute disaster. We do not want Boston Calling to be added that list going forward.
Overall for me, it was a fun weekend at Boston Calling. I don’t know if all festival goers can say the same thing. Bonus vlog of the weekend below!
Bonus Vlog
And without further ado, below is the full raw footage in vlog format from the weekend if you doubt my journalistic capabilities and want to see the chaos for yourself to draw your own conclusions.
