Let me start by saying the festival looked awesome. It was a first for the folks behind it, this was Gnarnia's inaugural year. All the pictures and video that came out, the lineup, the grounds... everything looks so legit. The website provides everything for you, from camping guidelines, to ride sharing, to a ton of activities they were holding. There's no doubt that people would be wanting to come out to this one, this was no underground festy. The problems began when there were more people than expected, and of course the increased amount of police presence in the area.
Fact is, police are in every event whether you know it or not. Breaking the law in any way WILL put you in a position to get caught by law enforcement. Being at a festival is not an excuse to do illegal things, but that is a personal decision. At Gnarnia, it seemed that the police were a little, hyper-active if you will. DT's trying really hard to set people up, harassing and arresting people next to tents that weren't theirs, being violent, randomly searching persons, hippie profiling, and all-in-all using terror tactics to get what they wanted. This is what stands out as the most significant issue here. Not the problems the producers had with tickets or camping, or even having the cops in the festival grounds.
"If you are for the path of open communication and change, share this article"
According to one trusted festival goer, the majority of arrests happened outside the festival at road blocks and at hotels and cabins. Apparently the festival grounds were not connected to the camping fields, one had to take a shuttle to get back and forth.... too many people decided they should drive their own cars. They had also told me about the sale of alcohol on festival grounds. As normal as that seems, North Carolina has a department for that, called the Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE). This allowed them to be on festival grounds whenever they wanted, in other words, more law enforcement around. So you had several different police departments doing "their own thing".
Getting back to the Facebook pages. The "Destroy" page has been garnering a lot of attention, but in my opinion is negatively affecting the community. People are angry their friends got in trouble, as anyone would be. Everyone is looking for someone to blame, which is literally pulling people apart. If anything everyone should get together and figure out a way to change legislation. I personally have been blocked from posting on the page after posting my rant to the page owner (I apologize for my French!). It sickens me that people are seeming more ok with seeing a police state in action than they are with a first time festival having first time festival issues. On top of that, people like myself, who are looking for answers and momentum and not just suggestions of conspiracy within the ranks of the promoters, are being silenced. The owner of the page won't even release his/her name to the public, but they will sit behind their desk and do nothing but instigate. When asked for pictures, I was replied to that I should post them, and people were "too scared" by the police to actually pull a camera out and film. If you don't exercise your rights, they will be stripped away from you. It's all smoke and mirrors to me, tactics to get people riled up, but there is no clear cause. On top of that, the page is censored (as certain posts have been on the event page as well). To me, it means make up your own mind. It's obvious that there are gaps in this story, but once again the over all lesson seems clear to me. This is a motion towards a police state. Ya'll didn't like it? Guess what, stop blaming everyone else but yourselves.
FACTS:
News Articles:
High County Press - Article 1 /// Article 2 // Article 3 // Sheriff's Office
WSOCTV: Article & Video Clip
Blogs:
Sensible Reason: POST
L4LM: POST
PHOTO:
August J Photography: SET
Kelsey Smith: SET
Bionic Beatlab - SET1 // SET2
VIDEO:
ChiefSchief333 - Festival Highlights
DubEra.com - Day1 Recap // Day2 Recap
rloerky - 2012 Gnarnia Music Fest
As a community, we are strong. There are hundreds of thousands of us, all with similar goals. We just want to have a good time at these events, but what do we stand for? The problem is that everyone is too comfortable. Festivals become marketing tools and we forever are stamped as a drug culture. If you are for the path of open communication and change, share this article. Don't let a bad experience shy you into a corner, instead make a stand. I hope that those wrongfully arrested and were harassed get their justice (if those stories posted are true).
LAST RANT:
The grounds were held on Beech Mountain, NC. Seemingly the middle of no where (it is), this town is only lively during the winter time when skiing and snowboard season open up. To have a mass amount of people in their town is both a great and terrible thing. As people, we don't like seeing things we are not used to coming into our comfort zone, but business loves it. Something else to think about here is the lower rate of crime in this type of area. Seeing a "neo-hippie" music festival coming into town, well that's an instant mark for law enforcement. I have never been involved with organizing something like this, but take Camp Bisco for example. Last year 25,000 people came through to Mariaville, NY. It caused so many issues with traffic, the locals, and it almost seemed like the festival might have to find another home. But it didn't. The problems caused the year before were handled in a new way this year, and Bisco was in it's 11th year.Now I do not know the way money gets thrown around for both private security and/or police, but it seemed like MCP was working directly with the police to insure the traffic moved and people that weren't supposed to be there were not there.
