Riverfest whiners, start your engines

If there’s anything that brings out the whining and griping in Wichitans, it’s Riverfest. Five bucks for nine full days of entertainment and events? What an outrage!
As a public service, I tried in my column Friday to address the petty complaints and kvetching and send everyone home happy, or at least with a free coupon for deep-fried lard nuggets at the food court.
Posted by Randy Scholfield

11 Comments

  1. Ben Huie
    Posted May 20, 2006 at 9:01 am | Permalink

    Well done Randy. I have enjoyed the events I have attended as has my family. While there are obviously things I might change (such as reconfiguring the West Bank Stage) Festival organizers have done a good job of bring a real bargain to Wichita.

    Even the traffic leaving downtown last night wasn’t really bad. That shows that with just a little planning (as I have outlined previously) we can handle Arena traffic with little difficulty. (I just hope there is some)

  2. Nathan
    Posted May 20, 2006 at 1:15 pm | Permalink

    What bugs me is the number of people who don’t buy a button and still want to complain!

    I know the buttons are kind of on the honor system, so you should do what is honorable and buy a button.

    I only attended for 4 hours last night, but I still bought a button.

    I wonder how many people that are comlaining even bought a button…

  3. raptor
    Posted May 20, 2006 at 4:56 pm | Permalink

    I find all the griping unbelievable, what do people expect, Mardi Gras?

    But, beyond that, I find the way the WE publishes all these gripes to be irresponsible. It is like the paper is encouraging people to complain by publishing all the negatives.

  4. steve
    Posted May 20, 2006 at 11:04 pm | Permalink

    The REO concert was a joke at the West Band Stage. We were close enough to have a good view, but could not even make out what songs were being played. So we walked up to about 75 feet from the stage and about all that was clear was the base. The sound system or the lay out sucks. Went to the turtles concert sounded great in comparison.

  5. J R
    Posted May 20, 2006 at 11:18 pm | Permalink

    Already home from the fireworks. I park a mile or so out and my son and I bicycle in. I bet it’s still a 3 mile an hour slowly rolling parking lot down there.

    Bicyclists could be accomodated better. More lock up racks etc. If more folks did what we do, traffic would be less.

    I always bought buttons before. But 5 dollars is too much.

  6. Keith
    Posted May 21, 2006 at 12:10 am | Permalink

    5 dollars is not too much for a button. I went to a majority of the museums and I would have spent about $25 dollars without the button. So in my mind it is worth the $5 dollars.

  7. Ben Huie
    Posted May 21, 2006 at 12:12 am | Permalink

    Good point Nathan about buttons.

    We had some trouble getting out tonight – a few traffic cops on McLean out to Central would have helped. As I have said about the Arena traffic cops will be critical for any sort of crowds.

    How about the weather! PERFECT! Maybe 5 degrees too warm yesterday but that is definitely nit-picking. Then rain tonight AFTER the show. Couldn’t have asked for better.

    Lets hope they can reconfigure the WB Stage before next year. Remember, it was a temporary structure years ago and the re-alignment of the road has messed it up. It wouldn’t cost much to reconfigure it.

  8. J R
    Posted May 21, 2006 at 12:26 am | Permalink

    Five dollars IS too much.

    My son and I walked and biked from Maple and Mclean to Douglas down Main and back across Maple. We watched the fireworks from just south of Douglas on Mclean.

    I counted 114 button wearers and I was honestly looking for buttons. That among the thousands of people there.

    I remember when the buttons were a dollar and almost everyone wore one.

  9. Nathan
    Posted May 21, 2006 at 2:56 am | Permalink

    5 dollars is too much?

    Sigh…

  10. JWink
    Posted May 23, 2006 at 2:23 pm | Permalink

    Now that the 2006 Riverfest is completed, serious discussions should be held about changing the Riverfest to the month of June. Also extending the programs over a good portion of June.

    I’m told by friends that it appears less people attended this year than previous years.

    Frankly its kind of disconcerting to try to attend a Wranglers baseball game at Lawrence-Dumont, using one of my 60 or so package tickets, but getting waved away from the parking lot because of the nearby carnival and hockey tournament. These are all good activities but don’t need to be compressed into the same few hours in practically the same place. In fact, none of these three are necessarily dependent on the River Festival and would take place anyway.

    And I object to the conflict with the final weeks of school and exam week. Festival organizers should think of something beside their own convenience in scheduling the festival activities.

  11. Ben Huie
    Posted May 23, 2006 at 2:26 pm | Permalink

    Problem with June – too hot. Perhaps some sort of either indoor or ‘water-based’ festival for summer.