On buying tickets, beer, and the pepper spray incident.
All photos by Maidenhell.
Tickets:
This is the second year that I bought a pair of tickets online via the MDF website.
This year, I wasn’t sure if I could make the trip (’cause of work) so we didn’t order the tickets until pretty late in the game.
Due to a small glitch on their end, only one ticket (of the pair) was mailed out. I kinda freaked out because of the lack of time until the fest.
I shot the guys back an email, and forwarded them my invoice. Within a week they had sorted out the issue and mailed me the missing ticket.
I also missed out on buying tickets for the Thursday pre-show (again because of work and stuff), but they held a late sale for a couple dozen tickets. I snagged a pair. Because of the late date, the tickets had to be held at will-call. I was a bit stressed, but the will-call worked seamlessly.
Out of the two years of buying tickets, only once did I encounter a problem, and that problem was very quickly and easily resolved.
Beer:
This year, beer prices went up. *weeps*
Last year, a cheap beer + tip = $5. This year I was paying $5 + tip for beer.
I’m a marketing gal by trade, so I just have to make a comment about the UX of beers that take more than one piece of paper to buy. I’m not sure if it’s an issue of me not being familiar with the currency, or just that I tend to visit dive bars where $5 will pay for the drink and the bartender’s time. I probably would have spent 1.5x on beer if I could have gotten a drink with just one bill.
This year, they had two beer trucks. (Literally tractor trailers FILLED with bubbly goodness.) Seriously, how awesome is that?!? I can’t remember if they had two trucks last year, or if they had one truck (at the west end).
Last year, they ran out of the cheap beer about a day and a half in, but this year they were serving up to the end. (Or at least until Coroner, when I was done for the weekend.)
Security:
I have said before, and am saying again that the security down in Baltimore is AMAZING.
I would be more than happy to pay a 5% surplus on a ticket if it meant getting the service that the MDF security provides. Seriously. As overpriced as the TO shows are, I would pay 5% more if it means that I don’t have to worry about being harassed by the brats that are running the security at most of the TO metal shows.
The MDF security team are competent, professional, and friendly. The first guy that I encountered insisted that he wristband me before my hubby because ladies come first. He joked that his wife would be angry if he didn’t treat the ladies nicely. At every interaction, the security members actually smiled.
The security team were well equipped to deal with metalheads. They let us have a good time in the pit, and didn’t freak out.
The group in the photo-pit reached out to the crowd-surfers, cradled them in their well-muscled arms, and gently deposited them on the ground.
I think that a large part of the difference is that these guys are well trained and physically capable of dealing with the crowd. These guys are literally pros.
Unfortunately, this year there was a bit of trouble with security. I missed out on the situation (hubby and I left after Coroner) and our roomies also missed out (they left after most of Ghost), so I can’t add any new info to the event. I’d skip the whole thing (since I can’t personally report on it) but this was kind of a big deal.
From Ryan Official MDF (From their forum – Scroll down to post #11):
“Well, from what I’ve gathered from some people connected to Sonar, this sounds like a couple of bad seeds working security that just lost their composure, and instead of just pinning down a trouble maker and carrying him away from a place where people are congregating and trying to leave peacefully, they used mace without really needing to. As someone else said, it’s unfair to consider all of these guys “thugs”, especially the countless guys that we’ve worked with there for 5 or 6 years now, as we know they wouldn’t use excessive force for the sake of being a tough guy. Ultimately, mace will NEVER be allowed on any security guard ever again at MDF, except for 1 responsible head person that knows when they REALLY need to use it, which will likely be never. From what I was told, the mace incident out front stemmed from someone saying he was going to kill a cop, but still, the best remedy to the problem would have just taken only a few of the numerous security guys sitting down around the entrance and just carrying him away from the area without making much of a scene.”
As it stands, I have never had a negative incident with security at MDF. It sucks that it happened, and hopefully everyone involved are doing ok.
