Waterfront Blues Festival Announces No Outside Food or Drink Policy for 2024

This year’s Waterfront Blues Festival will feature Ben Harper, Bobby Rush and Leyla McCalla, among others. But this summer, you won’t be eating home-cooked meals while watching these artists. For the first time, the festival will no longer allow outside food or drinks.

“This is a policy we’ve been thinking about for several years, and this is probably one of the last major urban music festivals to implement,” says festival director Christina Fuller. “This festival has a beautiful legacy spanning nearly four decades, but the realities of producing a large-scale festival have changed. »

Fuller says safety concerns are driving the change.

“When people bring in big coolers and we can’t search them all, it’s really a safety issue,” Fuller said. “Thirty years ago, it worked, in 2024, it no longer works. Change is difficult, and we understand that.

According to Fuller, ticket sales are strong and “98 percent” of attendees have accepted the changes. But not everyone.

“People went crazy,” says Jennifer Gunter, a longtime participant who contacted WW to voice her objections. “I felt their pain, because let’s say you’re diabetic or you have a heart condition, which means you have to be low sodium. You can’t just eat a Caesar salad that has 1,000 mg of sodium and say, ‘I’m good.'”

Gunter is 67 years old and one of the youngest in her group of friends who have been attending the festival for several years. She says the changes create new dangers for a more senior audience.

“I used to deal with crowd management security – I did my (Department of Public Safety and Standards training) – so I understand the security standards and I support them” , explains Gunter. “My question is: Are you convinced that (the sellers) will actually offer heart-healthy foods that are accessible to diabetics? And not only does it look pretty, but medically, is it something people can eat? This festival, you enter at 11 a.m. and you exit at 10 p.m. It’s been a long time without safe food.

Participants with a four-day pass are allowed to leave and return, while those with a single-day pass are not allowed to re-enter.

“I’m not trying to be an agitator, I just want to make sure they’re doing their due diligence,” Gunter says.

Some of Gunter’s fears were allayed. Festival organizers are offering exceptions for medical needs, whether for diabetic options, infant formula or other medically related foods or drinks, and encourage anyone with concerns or questions to contact directly via info@waterfrontbluesfest.com. The festival team also works to find vendors with healthy options and snacks, and to generate more business for the vendors.

“There’s a whole ecosystem of festivals that goes into producing a festival,” Fuller explains. “Food sellers are an essential part of our ecosystem. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to recruit food vendors and support these local independent businesses that need festivals to sell when people arrive with their picnics.

The festival team is currently recruiting food vendors and will announce vendor selections in the spring, along with general menus.

“All we ask is for people to contact us and communicate,” Fuller says. “We are also humans who eat three meals a day. We would love to know what (people) need or what concessions we can make.