Los Angeles has always been the hub of great concerts, and festivals, especially with venues like the Hollywood Bowl, Staples Center and so forth. The interesting point here is Balboa Park, which is in Encino, had there first Balboa Music Festival. The promoters had never experienced such a successful music festival. which was held on Saturday September 15TH. It was sold out weeks before the festival day.
The capacity for this festival was 6,000, however, the popularity of this festival brought over 12,000 festival goers on a hot day. So much that quite a few people who were waiting in line for 2 hours finally left. Perhaps there should have been more ticket agents on sight to handle ticket sales.
Gladys Knight was the headliner. She indeed won the crowd over and ended the festival in high spirits. Other performers included Cameo, The New Edition, with Bobby Brown, who also gave their all in choreography and such songs as My My. When the group got off stage it was a chaos with the media and on lookers. There just didn’t seem to be enough security to handle all the people backstage.
It was therefore a hard event for media coordinators to arrange interviews with the media. Large events such as these need pre -planning, and assessable media areas for the artist, backstage, away from the audience. The same chaos proceeded with Keisha Cole and Alan Thick.
The audience on the other hand seemed to feel they got their money’s worth for this festive occasion. Steve Cables, the concert promoter, was able to negotiate with Toyota to sponsor the event. That, along with over 40 venders, made for a successful festival. Considering the time of year this event was held and that it was the first time a festival of this type was staged at Balboa Park, next year should be much more organized and accommodating for everyone.
