Talk:Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

REGARDING THE ERIE CANAL SODA POP FESTIVAL-Labor Day 1972

I was there it was great, a few things may have went wrong but there was absolutely no violence,no issue with the people and Im sure no incidents with the law enforcment persons. I do remember the food trucks being looted but I can tell you without hesitation the price of the food was what fueled the looting. Back then the prices were rediculous. I was there I saw it all & I assure you that if everybody was like that now....There would be less grief around .

Where have all those good hippies & frieks gone?

Somebody traded them in for Yuppies I guess. Yuppies exist for all the wrong reasons- especially that "self" part they seem to be so hung up on.

DATED 2-25-06 By a self employed successfull business owner, father, husband , good guy and attendee at the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival who would gladly finance another one if someone wants to help me "get it together"

[edit] the bull island festival

i suppose that the promotion people that put this thing together meant well, but they were not successful

i was there - the deal was that you paid one price and was consequently entitled to all this free stuff like food & drinks

but this couldn't happen

bull island was not actually an island - there was a swampy area on one border that allowed unpaying people to "wade" through the swamp and reach the festival site - thousands of unpaying people it turned out

when food vendors tried to charge subsequently for their goods (because they had to; they couldn't feed thousands of unpaying people), some of the "trucks" were overturned and i know of at least one that was set on fire

many groups naturally cancelled their scheduled concerts because security was not able to control the crowds

now, even though i had a good time i think (i took a lot of baths in bong water back then), the site was just not able to contain all the crowd

and it was fortunate and a wonder that the whole event was not a tragedy

but overall, it was a wild party and many memories about which to tell stories to "young'uns"

[edit] Terrible conditions, a great time...

I went with two buddies. We drove from Northern Virginia. Traffic and parking were nuts. The portajohns weren't maintained and there weren't enough of them. We got to see Foghat and Albert King. Both were incredible, but the time between sets, and my allergies (Benedryl) kept me sedated... so we left and drove straight back home because there wasn't a vacancy between there and home! We ran out of gas in Evansville and the locals were real nice in helping us out.

[edit] Bull Island

Bull Island is an island when the Wabash River is up in the winter and spring. It is not in the summer.