Monday, July 14, 2008

Rocklahoma press release---"We're great, we didn't kill anyone!"

Well, those goobers (we are going to trademark that word as it applies to the management of Rocklahoma) that run Rocklahoma issued a lame and, frankly, arrogant and insulting press release today. We won't give it any space here, if you want to read it, go find it for yourself, we got it twice (typical for those geniuses in Pryor) on MySpace.

Anyway, the purpose of this press release was to assure everyone that the show would go on after the storm. Of course, issuing it nearly a day after the storm was over was nothing more than damage control. Through the power of the Internet, photos and video taken by us and by others (including Allyson at Bring Back Glam) got out there quickly.

The press releases are so stupid they would be funny if the situation weren't so serious. One of the bulletins was titled "Storm does not slow down Rocklahoma"; that bulletin then proceeded to explain in the very first sentence how the show was delayed -- one could even say slowed down -- 2 1/2 hours by the storm.

When the Rocklahoma people say there was nothing they could have done they are FULL OF SHIT. Look at the video we posted below of the storm approaching...any idiot could see it was going to be bad. There were numerous lightning strikes in the distance that could be easily seen by anyone. What did Rocklahoma do to evaluate this oncoming storm? Well, we saw their weather guy -- the big guy wearing an orange shirt that said something like "Weather Expert" on the back in huge letters --come out of backstage and look at the sky for about three seconds 10 or so minutes before the storm hit. At that point I actually called someone on my cell phone and had them look a the radar for Pryor online and they told me there were several lines of red (ie really bad) storm cells approaching.

Have they not gotten the Internet yet in Pryor Oklahoma?

After speaking with a bunch of people today who didn't get to their cars when I did, the way that Rocklahoma handled this is looking worse and worse. They denied people shelter, they gave no real warning of the storm, and those damn side stages should not have collapsed.

Rocklahoma, what happened here? Why did the stages collapse? Why weren't non-VIP people let into the VIP tent (the only shelter available) when the violent storm hit? What shelter was available for non-VIP attendees? Do you really think that this storm --- which, as seen on my video, was clearly visible long before it hit -- came out of nowhere?

Apparently, Rocklahoma was more concerned in its press release about boosting walk-up ticket sales for Sunday than with explaining what actually went wrong on Saturday.

Shame on you, Rocklahoma, are you more interested in making money than in the safety of your fans???

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