Last year Riot Fest came to Denver...sorta. The show was actually held at May Farms, which is thirty-plus miles east of Denver in the small farming community of Byers, Co.
As several influential residents of Byers thought having to once again endure the traffic and crowds the three day music festival brought to their little burg was more than they wanted to deal with, a request was presented to Arapahoe County zoning administrator Tammy King to deny the necessary temporary use permit.
So the permit was denied, and the permit denial was upheld at an appeal hearing in front of the Arapahoe County Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Which meant that Riot Fest organizers had to go with plan B - Sports Authority Field at Mile High is plan B (or at least the southwest parking lot of the home of the Denver Broncos is plan B).
With the Broncos out of town to face the Seahawks in Seattle, about thirty acres of the southwest parking lot was turned into a farm-like environment (the organizers are holding on to the link with Byers/May Farms) replete with a carnival midway featuring rides and game booths, food and drink vendors, a miniature golf course, and four large stages.
Riot Fest is a three-day affair with twenty or so bands scheduled for each day. In the morning and early afternoon either young up-and-comers or bands that have lost their drawing power are featured - to fairly sparse crowds.
The headliners on all three days were scheduled much later in the evening, and Saturday night three bands that had all originally formed in the late '70's - The Cure, Social Distortion, and The Descendents - were the big draw - at least for yours truly.
Those bands did indeed draw large crowds, and while the majority of the fans present appeared to me to have skipped their twenty-year (...or thirty-year) high school reunions in order to attend, there were a large number of sub-twenties present.
The crowds were extremely well-behaved and decidedly polite, which I thought was an unconscious slap in the face to the small minority of people in Byers who thought the huge boost to their tepid economy Riot Fest brought last year wasn't worth the trade-off of three days of heavy traffic.
After it was all sung and done, Saturday at Riot fest was a great time. Except for the bathrooms. Geez, they've had porta-potties available with solar charged LED lighting for how long now?
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