Great American Part III
Apparently, I’m not the only one who was dissatisfied with the way the (not so) Great American Food and Music Festival went. John Orr of the San Jose Mercury News wrote about it in a blog post Saturday night and expressed great disappointment and frustration. John Birdsall of SF Weekly had similar sentiments. Loni Stark of StarkSilverCreek even has an interesting video detailing the ordeal along with some tasty looking photographs. Even the San Jose Mercury News picked up the story.
A couple of days ago, Ed Levine issued another “apology” on his blog. But I’d say it’s a half-hearted apology at best. The first paragraph gets right to it and apologizes. What he apologizes for isn’t really clear because he never states it. In fact, I’d argue that he has the audacity blame the massive failure of the event on others–most notably the attendees!
Frankly, people were so excited about the fest that they all showed up early, which doesn’t normally happen at an all-day festival. That compounded the logistical issues.
That might not be outright blame, but it certainly seems to me like he’s trying to pass the buck. And speaking of bucks:
Our high-tech cashless wristband system, designed to be easy to use for serious eaters and purveyors alike, failed at the get-go.
Was it really his fault that technology failed? No certainly not. But it was his fault for not having a contingency plan and implementing it when things went awry.
The last part of his “apology” was a sob story about how things didn’t go as expected…uh…yeah. That’s the whole point:
This has been my dream for nearly two decades, I still believe in that dream. And the image I had in mind wasn’t what took place yesterday, but I won’t give up on the dream that I think a lot of you share with me. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you in person. We’ll let you know when we try again.
Ed, you can let me know when you try again, but you’re going to need a demonstrable improvement in logistics, entertainment, food, pricing, etc. before I consider attending again. In the meantime, I’d rather eat $1.50 Costco hot dogs with free soda and watch Bobby Flay on the Food Network.