2023-12-11 04:37:16
“The best thing about Speaker was leaving.” This opinion would not seem like that of someone who had attended the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the most important music festival in Medellín, but—rather—at the decadent end of a neighborhood event. However, this was one of the comments about the last version of the Altavoz Music Festival and unfortunately it was not the only one. This is mainly shown by the series of complaints that attendees, participants and even the event staff have published about it on social networks.
Let’s start by naming the initial thing, although the line-up of artists that the Speaker announces for its international event has never been free of controversy, the one for 2023 (which would take place between December 6 and 10) may be the one with the most voices dissonant, taking into account that it would be the celebration of two decades of the Festival that saw great bands from the country grow and consecrate.
However, the most disconcerting issue was the abrupt change of location. On Thursday, December 7, when the Festival had already started, the Mayor’s Office of Medellín announced at the last minute that Altavoz was no longer going to be held as usual in the Cincuentenario stadium but in the Hangar Park, despite the fact that on the grass of the field The floor protector had already been installed.
My last speaker was the one from Café Tacuba and Zeta Bosio and it is not even close to this platform. It doesn’t even measure up to a town’s stage. There are no longer words to speak of the group that administered Medellín: stealing and increasing power was the only purpose of the alternative assumptions. https://t.co/ZWAVCMRq12
— Lina María (@linamaria__)
December 10, 2023
What a controversy, because the “giant” tent—with a smaller capacity than the northeast field—was a gift given by the Quintero Mayor’s Office to the Cyan events company, one of its preferred contractors.
In an interview with EL COLOMBIANO, the director of Altavoz Fest, Felipe Grajales, assured that the change of location was a recommendation from Metroparques and was due to the fact that in the Parque Norte just on those dates they had to do energy maintenance, which affected the event.
That is to say, Metroparques told the Ministry of Culture that it was better not to hold the event in one of its parks, Parque Norte, but rather to take it to the tent rented to a private party. However, the director of Altavoz says that doing it in the Hangar was cheaper than in Parque Norte, since you also had to pay rent there.
It cannot be overlooked that Cyan pays $29 million a month to the Mayor’s Office to hold events at the John Paul II, but Cyan herself can charge up to $100 million a day for renting it. How much did the Ministry of Culture pay to put the Speaker Festival there? Still not known.
Oh well. As long as there is a good show and good logistics, everything is fine. The problem that there were also complaints. “The entry was ‘peye’, it seemed like two different events. The other stage far away from the main one. Several artists had to walk from the main stage to the alternate stage with their instruments in their hands,” complained an attendee.
“We arrived around 1:00 pm and they had not opened the doors to the public. They were barely mopping the floor of the main stage (…) The dressing rooms on the alternate stage were the same floor, without ventilation, the bands were getting ready and they were still half organizing those dressing room tents. And the food? Well, a burrito with chips and a little toy from a box. One of the few logistics people who was kind told me ‘I feel sorry for all these guys the way they have them,’” said one of the members who accompanied some local bands.
The balance of one of the artists who presented was that of a supremely wrong event, with bad sound and disrespectful to the artists for the little time they were given. “People were dissatisfied with so many things, especially the sound, which was disastrous. People want to relive what they always experience in the Speaker, something that was not achieved. This year there was no Telemedellín broadcast. It felt like a separate, distant event,” he said.
Another of the hard moments of the days had to do with the presentation of the band Testament, one of the living legends of world Metal. Although attendees highlighted the energy of the Californian band, the sound was so disastrous that it overshadowed the experience of seeing it in action. “In the press room the band could be heard decently but at times Chuck Billy seemed uncomfortable with the sound and a microphone failed,” said another attendee.
But not everything was a disaster, as a positive highlight is the participation of the public as well as the local and international bands who – regardless of so many setbacks – gave their all on stage to leave their fans happy.
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#bad #sound #bad #organization