2021 Elements Festival Lakewood: Allegations, Apologies, Fyre

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After queuing for three hours to park her vehicle at the Elements Music and Arts Festival in Lakewood, Pa. On Friday, September 3, attendee Blair Hemlepp encountered something strange when she finally came to the front of the line. , a parking attendant told him to demonstrate an available space.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. There was no room.

Instead, Hemlepp had to park diagonally on a walking path. She and her group of friends then traveled half a mile to where the shuttles were supposed to take them to the festival grounds, but instead another worker greeted the group and informed them that the point of the shuttle had moved about half a mile down the mountain. Hemlepp and thousands of his fellow festival goers descended the muddy hill, lugging their camping gear, until they reached a giant grassy field. They weren’t given a lot of instruction there either.

There was a guy with a megaphone yelling profanity about, like, his penis or something, but he wasn’t telling anyone what to do, Hemlepp said.

So she and her group sat in a sort of line for eight hours, before learning that there were no more shuttles coming. She dragged her gear up the mountain, got into her car, and headed for a hotel about an hour away. She never made it to the three-day festival.

Hemlepp is just one of thousands who had a terrible experience at the Music, Art and Camping Festival, which took place Friday through Monday over Labor Day weekend, with a lineup of EDM artists including Diplo, CloZee, Griz and Chris Lake. The event, held on 150 acres of private land about three hours outside of New York City, started as a one-day event in 2013 and grew into a three-day event in 2017. This year, around 7,000 fans attended. assisted. Elements’ social media pages are now inundated with these same people demanding a refund. There is no helping staff and the few volunteers have no idea what is going on, (we) were so dehydrated because the free water ran out or we had to pay $ 4 for a small bottle of water , and this festival was a total disaster, are just a few of the comments left on Instagram throughout the weekend. Many have compared the situation to the Fyre Festival fiasco.

Elements Festival I walked away a few days after the craziness of last week, but come back to some absolute horror stories this weekend including 16 hours of waiting to access the campsite which was full, cars completely stuck in Ida’s rain mud + much more.

See comments below. pic.twitter.com/jokD3MmTOk

– Festive Owl (@TheFestiveOwl) September 5, 2021

Between tickets, parking passes and a hotel stay, Hemlepp says she spent about $ 1,500 on the festival. She emailed the festival asking for a refund, but had no response.

A representative from Elements told Vulture on Wednesday that due to Hurricane Ida, which hit the region earlier in the week, the festival was unable to use two-thirds of its parking lot and had to move its main grounds on Friday. No one on our team has been tasked with telling anyone to sleep in their car, a representative told Vulture. The festival disputes all other allegations of neglect and mismanagement.

Two other attendees, Saliana Rosenfield and Landis Hennessy, made their way inside the festival but said on Saturday morning the festival ran out of filtered water to drink and the Porta Potties were full, leaving people go to the toilet outside. Space being limited, some participants set up their camping pitches near the overcrowded Porta Potties. Beaten down by the bad experience, Rosenfield and Hennessy left at 8 p.m. on Sunday. As they got out, their car got stuck in the mud; they had to pay $ 80 local to tow it. Three hours later, they were free.

A representative from Elements told Vulture that parts of the parking lot were saturated with rain and a team of tow vehicles were ready to help any stuck cars. Each vehicle was able to leave at the end of the festival, the rep said, and added that while some toilet areas were not serviced as often as they could have been by our supplier, several toilet banks were available at any time.

The queue we waited in for over 6 hours which caused us to miss all of the Friday lineup pic.twitter.com/YU24u3LC9j

– claudibles (@richhomieclauds) September 5, 2021

My car is towed (with construction equipment) in the mud they charged us $ 110 to park pic.twitter.com/WWlVcYLfNo

– claudibles (@richhomieclauds) September 5, 2021

Hi everyone, we would like to take a moment to sincerely apologize for the difficulty entering the festival yesterday for some members of our community. pic.twitter.com/IAOoqUUOrU

– Elements Music & Arts Festival (@elementsfestnyc) September 4, 2021

Kolby, a participant who declined to give his last name for professional reasons, says he wants a refund because the festival hasn’t offered the promised activities. The site had a lake, which the festival advertised as a place to swim while listening to music played on the nearby Water Stage. But at one point on Saturday, Kolby said two paramedics showed up and started asking everyone to get out of the water as all water-related activities were canceled.

They started screaming Shark !, says Kolby. They started shouting all kinds of different things. They asked everyone on earth, to the number of three, to shout: Get out of the water! with them, for they had no other way to project their voices than to scream.

Kolby heard rumors as to why they had to evacuate the lake due to understaffing or a dangerous algae bloom, or that one of the septic tanks had burst and emptied into the lake, but nothing has been confirmed. The Northern Wayne Fire Company did not respond to our request for further information, and Pennsylvania State Police said they had not received any calls from the festival.

All advertised activities were allowed over the weekend, a representative from Elements told Vulture. People were allowed into the lake in the safest area bordered by the dock.

In 2020, Forbes interviewed Elements Festival co-founders Timothy Monkiewicz and Brett Herman on how they plan to have a safe festival in the midst of a pandemic. The two told Forbes they had created a consulting services company, called Tested Contained Retreats, to make sure attendees were COVID-19 free. For this year’s festival, Elements attendees had to prove they had a negative COVID-19 test or were vaccinated, according to its website, but when the time came to present the evidence, Kolby says the Festival employees didn’t even scan the QR code, leaving him nervous about being in such a large crowd. On top of that, there was no sanitation station anywhere, he said. One participant posted on Facebook that since returning from Elements, he had tested positive for COVID-19.

We used CrowdPass to verify attendees during the changeover and performed offline checks for internet availability issues, an Elements representative told Vulture.

Another participant, Emily L., who declined to give her last name for professional reasons, is a vegetarian and said the festival has run out of food options for her. So she ended up eating only the bananas and Nutella she had brought. According to the festival’s website, attendees were allowed to bring a factory-sealed water bottle, no more than one liter, as charging stations would be available (according to Emily there were only three), but when the festival ran out of water, Emily says she found water bottles near a stage and handed them out to attendees.

Although wait times were longer than expected, food and water were available throughout the event, an Elements representative told Vulture.

absolute shit show, we waited over 10 hours and never entered pic.twitter.com/Vtvxwg5k6L

-. (@ifakeitsoreal) September 5, 2021

Selected comments from the Elements Facebook group and Instagram page pic.twitter.com/tUMF4QY0Au

– claudibles (@richhomieclauds) September 5, 2021

Emily is a regular at festivals; she has about 15 in total and likes to rate them based on logistics and security, music production and overall vibes. She didn’t rate Elements particularly well.

Based on my time with my friends and the social aspect I would give it a seven [out of ten]. In terms of music and art, it was also a seven. Unbelievable. Logistics? Zero, she said.

Frank Prochilo, a civil litigation lawyer in New York City, is collecting information from Elements attendees to explore the possibility of filing a lawsuit. He says that because the festival did not keep its promises, such as having water and food, participants deserve compensation and a full refund.

With this festival, I’ve never seen anything like it before, says Prochilo.

(That might not be entirely true, of course, if you remember the 2017 Fyre Festival, a music festival so poorly executed that founder Billy McFarland pleaded guilty to one count. wire fraud to defraud investors and attendees. While attendees were promised luxury villas and good meals, they were given FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches. The disaster produced two documentaries.)

The Elements team issued a statement apologizing for any disappointments or logistical issues. We have set up a dedicated email address at [email protected], where we welcome your feedback and will respond to every email we receive, as part of the statement.

A statement from our team. pic.twitter.com/cBpuAQs88F

– Elements Music & Arts Festival (@elementsfestnyc) September 8, 2021

This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.

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