My experience at Kingston Fest — The organizers bit off more than they could chew

BY SELINA MCCALLUM
I attended Kingston Festival on Sunday, August 7th, 2022, and I was not expecting the experience I got out of it. By now, many people have heard about the unethical and extremely dangerous practices that happened that day.

Although the event promoters opened the doors to the outdoor festival at 1pm, my friend and I decided to go for 6pm, knowing that the headliners wouldn’t go on until the late evening. When we got there, it was absolute chaos. There were no signs that pointed towards the VIP or general admission line, so my friend and I stood in the VIP line until we got to the front, and they told us we were in the wrong line. Once we got to the general admission line, there was no order. People were just squeezing in one big huddle until they ended up within the gate lines.

After we go through security and get our tickets scanned, we walk up to what was once the general admission area. We see that the silver fence that was supposed to divide the VIP area off was knocked down. Personally, I think that having a fence in the middle of the field to divide the two sections was a bad idea to begin with. Some people would have pushed or been pushed up to the fence once the headlining artists came on anyway.

Drink tickets were being sold in order to get a drink. Mixed drinks were $12, Beers were $10, and water was $4. Two women behind us told us that water was already sold out from a few hours ago. This was surprising as how does an hours long, outdoor event in a heat wave not have thousands of water bottles readily available, especially when people were asked to throw out their water bottles at the entrance gate.

I purchased two drink tickets and picked up one drink and thought to pick up the other one later. However, my friend and I were not able to because when we went to get another drink an hour later, they told us they were shutting down the “bar”, and there were no refunds for any drink tickets.

A fight had broken out in the crowd near the stage, two stampedes happened, and a restless crowd was getting impatient as the hours passed. Chronic Law had already performed around 6:30pm, but the audio from that time was going in and out. The next performer, Skillibeng came on at around 9pm, but only the first 4 rows of people standing near the stage could hear him. And since there was no screens put up on the sides, the people in the back couldn’t see or hear him. Shenseea performed next, but the audio still was extremely low.

Between 10pm and 10:30pm, the stage crew was testing the sound. Once the sound was fixed and people at the back could finally hear, Popcaan performed. During his set, Popcaan said all of the people in the audience are hardworking, independent people who gave the organizers our hard-earned money and demanded that the people get a refund from Kingston Festival. “It’s a disappointment, a disappointment,” said Popcaan before he started performing again.

Popcaan took it a step further that night and went on his Instagram story to say that the organizers should pay back the people their money for the show. In an exclusive interview with Brandon Gonez, Kingston Fest organizer, Dwayne Hines did not offer a sincere apology as he blamed the crowd for pushing down the VIP and GA barrier in the first place. “At this point in time, because our festival guidelines were that we delivered the show and all artists performed, there will be no refunds at this time.” When asked about the sound issues for two of the main artists, Hines replied, “that’s due to the fact of the damage production caused by the crowd’s breaching the fences…that isn’t out fault.”

Kingston Fest has since announced that they will be throwing a Reconciliation Concert on November 11th, 2022. VIP ticket holders will get a free ticket, while GA ticket holders will get a 50% off discount. Some people in the comments of their Instagram post were questioning the date and where it will be held, but no new information has been provided.

Overall, the event for thousands of attendees, including myself, was a huge waste of time and money.