Outside the gates, thousands also enjoyed the CHBP 2024 show

With reporting by Nova Berger/CHS Reporting Intern

The Capitol Hill Block Party awakens this Monday in a familiar place: facing questions of whether the music festival has grown too much for its neighborhood streets in a hangover of the sunny fun and legendarily good times experienced during its annual three days of music and partying.

“We were thrilled to see the incredible interest and excitement surrounding this year’s festival, especially with the rising popularity of our performing artists,” a Capitol Hill Block Party spokesperson said in a statement to CHS. “This enthusiasm reflects the vibrant and dynamic music scene that our festival celebrates.”

“We are committed to creating a safe, enjoyable, and memorable festival experience for everyone, and will continue to examine our security measures closely and adjust certain aspects for each iteration of the festival,” the spokesperson said.

The $100-plus ticketed event’s producers say they capped sales to 10,000 for Friday’s first day despite the massive surge in interest around the night’s headliner, Chappell Roan. Producers say city officials would allow up to 14,000 people to fill E Pike and the surrounding streets — “the maximum capacity for our footprint determined by the Seattle Fire Department.”

Even with the 10,000 daily limit, festival goers reported near-crush conditions as thousands packed onto E Pike just east of Broadway on the warm Seattle night to witness Roan’s set with reports of people passing out and suffering minor injuries.

The Block Party’s production company includes ownership from Pike/Pine institutions including the Neumos and Barboza family, Lost Lake Cafe, the Comet, and Big Mario’s.

Over the years, the festival’s growing popularity has faced calls for more to be done to address the event’s impact on the surrounding neighborhood including public safety issues, traffic, mobility issues around the festival fencing and production equipment, and noise.

Organizers say they were ready for the crowds “in anticipation of a sold out day of the festival on Friday” and worked with the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Fire Department “to arrange onsite safety and crowd management support (including EMTs, several specialty units and numerous officers inside and outside the festival) for our audience inside the festival footprint, as well as the crowds gathered in the surrounding streets beyond our gates.” Block Party says it also employs more than 100 security staff to help with crowd management during its festival weekend.

“The safety of our guests, artists and staff is our number one priority. We anticipated and planned for a large audience and took additional steps to address security concerns proactively for this year’s festival,” the spokesperson said.

Block Party’s Daydream State production company increased security this year following a deadly shooting outside the gates of the festival in 2023. The family of Essence Greene, the 20-year-old shot and killed last July as late night crowds formed around street racers outside the fences of the festival at Broadway and Pike, has sued. CHBP says this year’s efforts included the extra security, early work with SPD and Seattle Fire, plus development of a “comprehensive risk management plan, emergency procedures, communication protocols, and evacuation plans capable of accommodating a crowd of this size.”

Block Party says they were told the East Precinct was planning extra “police coverage extended through the entire night, well after the festival concluded” in the wake of last year’s shooting.

The concerns this year were inside the gates where Block Party’s knack for signing a star on the rise like Chappell Roan pushed the festival to its limits.

Still, there were no reports of serious injuries and the Seattle Fire records for the night show a typical summer Friday for nearby Station 25.

911 dispatch logs for Seattle Fire across Capitol Hill by date via sfdlive.com

Safety concerns weren’t the only Block Party complaints in 2024. The massive opening night crowd and its concentration on Chappell Roan’s main stage performance highlighted the challenges of holding a ticketed music event on a street in the middle of one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in the country. Producers say a new sound system and new video screens were added “to ensure the performance could be enjoyed further down the Pike corridor in anticipation of a larger crowd” but many concertgoers still felt left out of the main stage party.

Producers also made one of the ultimate sacrifices in festival revenue opportunities — shrinking the beer garden to make more room in the main stage area. Still, there were gripes from the non-drinking crowd as five of the seven stages at the all-ages festival were located inside 21+ venues within the festival footprint.

VIPs were griping, too. Friday’s crush brought long lines to enter the festival grounds, even for those with the most exclusive CHBP passes.

Meanwhile, in addition to the blocked streets and sidewalks around the edges of the festival, production trucks and equipment blocked routes and bike lanes — an annual occurrence during the event.

But the freeloader crowd that forms in the lot of the Broadway at Pike 76 gas station wasn’t a problem. “It should be free. They can come inside, buy something and go enjoy the music. There’s no worries there,” an employee told CHS.

Block Party producers called the new safety measures and setup a success.

“We give immense credit to the security staff and attendees that fostered a safe and welcoming environment for fellow guests,” a spokesperson said. “Though we recognize there were a variety of experiences throughout the festival, we witnessed many of our guests taking care of one another and mindfully sharing this space as our security staff handed out earplugs and water to those who needed them.”

Producers also were able to mostly overcome logistical challenges this year due to the global information technology issues that arose from the massive CrowdStrike and Microsoft failure that shut down services including thousands of airline flights around the world. A handful of acts saw their sets shifted in the festival schedule while a few others were canceled completely due to travel issues.

Capitol Hill Block Party 2024

The 2024 challenges for CHBP come as Block Party producers have continued to grow the now more than 25-year-old festival while trying not to increase its physical footprint and impact on the surrounding the neighborhood. Recent years as the event has grown and ticket prices, risen have included ongoing efforts from CHBP organizers to engage with and support local artists and businesses.

The festival again featured representation from businesses around the block. Wunderground Coffee had a booth. “It’s great for business,” a worker with Wunderground said. He said Wunderground also go free tickets through their building manager, as well as a food vendor wristband from CHBP.

“As a way of showing our appreciation and gratitude for the businesses within and surrounding Capitol Hill Block Party’s footprint, this year we continued the successful neighborhood promotions and partnerships that we have had in place since 2019,” a Block Party representative said. “This includes but isn’t limited to additional marketing opportunities and ticket giveaways to help bring patrons to their stores in the months leading up to the festival.”

Area residents also got tickets to the event through building managers, CHBP says.

Five years ago before the pandemic, the City of Seattle was looking at reining CHBP in. The 2019 festival took place against a backdrop of renewed scrutiny of the festival’s impact on the neighborhood and an effort to better document the issues, problems, and opportunities surrounding the annual for-profit event. A city-hired consultant formed focus groups, an online survey, as well as interviews with residents, businesses and local business and neighborhood agencies about the impact of the event.

Five years and a global pandemic later, many of those concerns have been pushed aside and other ticketed street events in the neighborhood like the Queer/Pride music festival have grown.

Block Party producers have also tried to be good neighbors. At 11th Ave’s Vermillion, owner Diana Adams says the festival bankrolled the art bar’s own mini festival with free music every night after 11 over the weekend. They’re giving me $1,000 a day to have my own artists. Any band I want.” said Adams. Adams said she took the opportunity to book local artists.

Meanwhile, Block Party has also grown free events during the weekend outside its gates including a skateboarding competition in Cal Anderson. The city also helped sponsor a free concert in the park as Heavy Sounds, a local musical collective put on a free electro indie show in Cal Anderson Park on Saturday.

They weren’t the biggest fans of Block Party. “Kind of corporate vibes,” said one of the organizers.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍