Photo: DAlbrightVideo
Here’s a look at the first day of festivities in images gathered via Twitter and Facebook. Friday was a good day for a party and most things CHBP seemed to go off without major hitches. The line for will call was a regular source of bitching with many complaining of waits up to 35 minutes to enter the festival. Another common complaint: squeezing the 7,000 or so in attendance today onto E Pike made for close quarters. But what’s a three-day music fest without a little shoulder rubbing.
On the 911 side of things, it has been a mostly quiet night with only a handful of medical callouts for issues related to things like the heat and, yes, the booze. Cops have had it mostly quiet, too. A large crowd gathered around a fight outside the CHBP gates near the Shell Station but the situation was quickly defused. Other than that, the most exciting thing might have been the nine or ten nude bicyclists reported cruising down Broadway passed Dick’s, of course.
Also reported — but not involving SPD — was a marching band touring Pike/Pine, MGMT eating at Po Dog, and quite a few bragging of simply walking into the Block Party without a ticket later in the night.
We’ve embedded most of the images per their services ‘native’ format just to make sure we’re compliant with terms of use. That explains some of the puny thumbnails below. If we’ve used your photo and you’d prefer we didn’t, let us know at [email protected]. Add a link in the comments if we’ve missed something cool.
Photo: nstop — The line to get in at Capitol Hill Block Party: … (pic via Jill)
Photo: DAlbrightVideo: Cal Anderson Park
Photo: Dixon Hamby
Cap Hill Block party was a total disappointment this year. Way too crowded, and massively disorganized. Will call line was 45 minutes, even worse than the 35 min you quote. Caused me to miss most of Yeasayer.
The new layout and overcrowding made it impossible to get close to the main stage. We couldn’t see the band, couldn’t hear it that well, and you get constantly shoved by all the people trying to get through.
get stopped by the po in front of the Broadway Grill. They were forced to put on clothes. They also had a approx. 10 year old clothed boy with them. wtf.
Block part was awesome. Yeah it was crowded but that’s to be expected, same with long lines at will call.
The marching band performing OUTSIDE the fence was Titanium Sporkestra. I caught them playing around 10:30 over on 10th Ave. in front of Rancho Bravo. It was a great show, lots of dancing, and it looked like folks were having as much if not more fun outside the fence than inside of it.
LOL. Have you ever considered the possibility that the Will Call lines were so long because a bunch of dumbasses like you decided to try and show up at 7 o’clock, when one of the most popular bands at the event were going to be playing in a few minutes?
Surprise. Of course you missed most of it.
As for disorganization… it’s a bunch of people standing around in a fenced in area. What kind of organization do you want?
Sure, the 21+ line got pretty unruly, but it was never beyond reasonable.
God that looks like the most awful thing in the entire history of awful things.
It’s like someone said ‘Let’s put everything that sucks together in one spot.’
“They also had a approx. 10 year old clothed boy with them. wtf. “
Eh, nudism doesn’t bother me.
Seattle Times talked to the group involved in the incident:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012442136_n
Re: Maus
The kid just seemed out of place will the sparse group of men and 1 woman. More of a “wtf how does this situation even arise” type of wtf.
To be fair:
It was possible to leave work early, get to the Will Call hours before 7 and still stand in line for nearly an hour! CHBP is great but simple SIMPLE inprovements are called for – such as returning to selling hard copies of tickets at a local outlet (yes, and avoiding postage and “service fees” in the process).
Once you received your WC tickets, instead of going in YOU went through another line to submit the tickets. Those two things should have happened together.
And a little additional communication: the lines ran for blocks without any signs or CHBP people letting attendees know that the line was split by ALPHABET. You found that out once you rounded the corner and saw the sign.