We're having a...Stadium Day? Field Day Festival moved to Giants Stadium

June 5, 2003 5:10 AM

Field DayThe Field Day festival, intended to be a two-day outdoor show in Calverton, NY, (Eastern Long Island) has now been reduced to a single day, and will be held at Giants Stadium in NJ. Tickets will be automatically refunded -- you must purchase new tickets to the NJ show.
posted by metrocake (20 comments total)

On the one hand, I feel bad for everyone who had tickets -- especially my fellow Long Islanders, who now need to travel a bit further on Saturday. And making everyone repurchase their tickets just sucks; you know some people will be showing up on Saturday assuming their Calverton tickets are still good. Or even worse, showing up in Calverton, and not NJ.

On the other hand...I know the location in Calverton very well. It's frickin' huge field next to a lot of woods, across the road from Calverton National Cemetary. Pretty location, but on the other hand -- that's "road," singular, and a long, rural, two-lane road, at that. "Ugly traffic pileup" doesn't even begin to describe it. When I first heard about the concert, all I could think was, "Great idea, but how the hell will people get there?"
posted by metrocake at 5:20 AM on June 5, 2003

The only winner in this situation is TicketMaster. Sure, they're refunding the money for the ticket, but the "service charge" (which I heard from some of my friends was over $30) is going bye-bye. Plus, they'll make *another* service charge when you get the new tickets, plus an extra charge for forcing you to use "Rapid TicketMaster", or whatever the hell it's called, since they don't want 80,000 people waiting at the Will Call window. What a mess...

"Smithers, you laughed when I bought TicketMaster. 'Nobody's going to pay a 150% service charge!'"
posted by emptybowl at 6:19 AM on June 5, 2003

Although I empathize with the difficulties in arranging a festival of this size, they have royally f'd things up here.

I know of at least a half dozen people coming from Toronto. I still haven't (and won't, obviously..) received my tickets in the mail. We were told that "UPS doesn't ship to Canada". I should mention that to the UPS guy who comes to my office every day.

The majority of the group of people I was going with have now cancelled. I'm still going; road trips are fun.

My followup to this thread will detail the troubles I run into crossing the border.
posted by Adam_S at 6:22 AM on June 5, 2003

emptybowl: I assumed the same thing, but was explicitly told in a creepy automated phone call from Ticketmaster last night that the entire credit card purchase price would be refunded, including service charge.

I'll keep you posted..;)
posted by Adam_S at 6:24 AM on June 5, 2003

This post means a lot to me, here in Atlanta.

I'll bet it even means less to our overseas chums.

(not everyone lives in New York)
posted by jpburns at 6:37 AM on June 5, 2003

Being an old guy that lived on Long Island, a couple miles south of Calverton, until 4 years ago, I hadn't heard of this until someone somewhere linked to a story in Newsday . Metrocake is right getting in and out wold be next to impossible. It appears that the guys that put this together knew someone in Riverhead but didn't know how to plan ahead. I'm also not surprised that the town has not been able to get anything off the ground since the Navy gave it to them a few years back. Of more interest will be the success of the deal planed for August (Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and The Dead) that will appeal more to the general middle age voting constituents of Suffolk County (including the Hamptons crowd).
posted by mss at 6:47 AM on June 5, 2003

This did turn out to be a major cluster-f***. My girlfriend had tickets for Calverton and was arranging to meet a couple of friends out there. Ever since the promoters started having trouble with the permits in Suffolk County I'd been keeping an eye on the news about the concert for her. Yesterday, just by chance I noticed that they'd moved the concert to Giants Stadium just as tickets went on sale. Being the good boyfriend that I am, I purchased her a ticket right away.

The problem is that at Calverton it would have been general admission, so there wouldn't have been any problem meeting up with friends. But in a stadium, I'm assuming there will be assigned seating, making it much more difficult. My girlfriend's ticket is on the field, but I think one of her friends got something in section 111. It just won't be the same for her I'm afraid.
posted by trust_no_one at 6:49 AM on June 5, 2003

This post means a lot to me, here in Atlanta.

oh, boo-fucking-hoo.

i don't live in amsterdam. but that's not grounds for me to question the integrity of a post like this because it has no affect on me personally.

if it means nothing to you, ignore it.
posted by goddam at 6:53 AM on June 5, 2003

(not everyone lives in New York)

what? wait a sec... then what are you doing on our Internet?
posted by KnitWit at 7:18 AM on June 5, 2003

i had a feeling about not getting tickets to go to ny to see this show-- the traffic, the problems-- but then of course the last time i went to a two day concert i got to witness eleven people struck by lightning, didn't get to see any bands and missed RH playing free at a club only blocks away with Pulp opening and Stipey on back up--
--and oddly being a former LI/NYCer has absolutely nothing to do with it--
but if i could get to jersey in days to see that show i would. the line up is incredible, kind of like the one i missed that last time on the second day i didn't have tickets for--
--resultant accidental dirty looks at Thom Yorke and fisting foo fighters--
--that's just a whole other story--
posted by ethylene at 10:04 AM on June 5, 2003

i don't live in amsterdam. but that's not grounds for me to question the integrity of a post like this because it has no affect on me personally.

goddam: The posting you linked to is something that will affect the nature and character of Amsterdam for some time to come. This is an annual festival that won't affect me in the future if I happen to visit Giants stadium. New York will remain, essentially, the same. Amsterdam is identified with the cannabis cafes, but New York has any number of music festivals...

See the difference? I don't want to be snarky, but this is only locally important.
posted by jpburns at 11:19 AM on June 5, 2003

jpburns, while this might not affect the New York area for years, people are coming to this festival from all over the continental U.S. It is a big deal -- not just for New Yorkers.
posted by josh at 12:25 PM on June 5, 2003

I don't want to be snarky, but this is only locally important - jpburns

okay, but ...

I know of at least a half dozen people coming from Toronto. -Adam_S

sorry, i was just felling "snarky"

have a nice day
posted by Lungsbreth at 12:32 PM on June 5, 2003

"but this is only locally important"

Uh, not to Adam S, it's not. Nor to people I know who are attending from Virginia and Pennsylvania -- areas outside of the tri-state region who might not necessarily get the updated information from local NY media -- or who might not hear about this even in upstate NY.

It's a really good lineup, and with the two-day camping on-site as originally intended, lots of people were going to roadtrip from around the East Coast (and beyond). So while it's not something that would drastically affect the entire nation, I thought something newsworthy for the East Coast was worthy of a front-page post, especially given that the concert's two days away and the venue was just changed yesterday to a completely different state.

Jpburns, I'm officially calling you snarky.
posted by metrocake at 2:10 PM on June 5, 2003

hey, i was gonna come from freakin indiana. it was worth it, and what they were trying to do was worth it. i'm just glad i didn't sign up to do an installation.
posted by ethylene at 2:38 PM on June 5, 2003

emptybowl: Sure, they're refunding the money for the ticket, but the "service charge" (which I heard from some of my friends was over $30) is going bye-bye.

I despise Ticketmaster as much as the next person, but according to the Field Day site:

All tickets purchased for the Calverton festival will be AUTOMATICALLY REFUNDED to the credit card on which they were purchased (including Ticketmaster per ticket convenience fee)
posted by dchase at 5:18 PM on June 5, 2003

Gawker reinforces the World-Is-New-York meme. (Scroll down...sure wish they had permalinks.)
posted by Vidiot at 10:22 PM on June 5, 2003

permalink just for vidiot. (No, it isn't obvious.)
posted by xiffix at 7:20 AM on June 6, 2003

So, did anybody go???
posted by onlyconnect at 10:48 AM on June 9, 2003

aw..thanx, xiffix. (How'd ya find it?)
posted by Vidiot at 3:08 PM on June 9, 2003