Say NO to Glow Sticks!!!

Hi, folks! First and foremost, thanks to Planet Bluegrass, its crew and all fellow
Festivarians for an amazing Telluride. That said…

It’s one thing when marshmallows are thrown, but the one down moment of Telluride
for me was the throwing of glow sticks.

As far as I’m concerned, a world class event like Telluride Bluegrass is above that
garbage; and as far as I’m concerned, glow sticks should never be allowed on
the festival premises. Period!

I’m a banjo player, and if I was playing a gig and got hit by something like that:

  1. I would immediately stop playing for the night.
  2. I would find the person responsible.
  3. …and make sure that person learned never to do that again!!

In fact, my post here is an example of the negative energy created from the throwing of
the glow sticks.

Now, of course YMSB welcomed the marshmallow war, but my understanding is that
Brett Dennen (whom I skipped – sorry!) was hit by a marshmallow and refused to
play an encore. If that’s true, I do not blame him at all.

Please, Craig and company…implement the glow stick ban immediately! All they do
is instigate negative energy and bad karma. Leave that garbage to the jam band
and trance audiences and keep it out of all Planet Bluegrass events. Thank you in advance.

I also talked to someone that was hit in the face by a glow stick.

“I could have lost an eye. It hit very close to my eye!”

A.H.

I agree with all y’all on the glow sticks. For a second there I thought I was in Coachella or some Electric Daisy Carnival. (Not that I would ever go to Coachella or an EDC)

Glow sticks hurt and marshmallows are a sticky mess. :mad

Just throw love and flowers. :flower

Agree there is know reason to throw anything.Unfortunately the people that throw those things don’t read this forum, bu the Planet can start spreading the word now!

I agree that, due to their rigid nature, throwing glow sticks is unacceptable. You don’t know how the thing will be oriented when it hits its target.

Marshmallows didn’t bother me, because they really can’t injure anybody. I did have concerns about the cleanup. And throwing anything onstage is completely unacceptable; that would be a shame if the report of Brett Dennen not playing an encore were true. I enjoyed his set, and wouldn’t want him to be soured towards future festival appearances.

i thought about bringing a banana and tossing it onstage during sam bush’s set so he’d play “bananas”. i wouldn’t do it, but i thought about it.

Just throw love and flowers.

Right on, Tom!!!

I got hit in the temple by a marshmallow, and it definitely hurt. I also got beaned in the face with one of the beach balls. I wear glasses, so you can imagine how that felt. But I can look out for beach balls. Glow sticks, marshmallows, and other small projectiles should be banned. For all the talk of being “green” and “clean”, that should mean that we don’t leave crap like that strewn everywhere.

I agree, Glowsticks for little kids to hold are ok but I was shocked by the throwing of them… I was able to stop with a friends’s help one of the marshmallow throwers…

Brett Dennen had a blast with the marshmallows (as did YMSB). Brett returned several of them to the crowd and the one that hit him was the one he tried to catch in his mouth. It honestly never crossed my mind that there was anything wrong with the marshmallow tossing and I believe the concerns expressed about the marshmallows and the attitude of the artists about the marshmallows are very much over-blown here. Unless you get hit directly in the eyeball I do not think it could hurt you.

However, the point about the mess they can cause seems very valid (I didn’t think about that). While the danger of injury from a marshmallow is nearly non-existent, I can see that it can be distracting to an artist and we all want them focused on their music.

I certainly agree that glowsticks should not be thrown under any circumstance. But banning glowsticks seems unnecessary and un-festivarian. It is not the glowsticks, it is the throwing of them that is the problem.

Didn’t Tom Snider get upset a few years ago and leave his set early because of marshmallows?

:thumbsup

I’m sure I’m in the minority on this, but I thought the Marshmallows were fun and brought a bit of levity to a day that was fraught with worry for our tarp mates who live 5 miles from the fire that brought in all the smoke.

There were plenty of Volunteers going in to clean up the grounds each day, and I for one did not see any mallows souping up the grounds. Sounds to me like there is no documented artist complaints…but really I see no issues with the mallows, I just tell people not to throw them at the stage…always throw backwards! And if I see someone throw it at the stage I politely ask them not to do it again.

My Minority Marshmallow Report

I also think the marshmallows were pretty dang funny but they DEFINITELY are goopy. I have a wad of them on one of my tarps. I can see why some people don’t like it. The glow sticks, on the other hand, are just dumb. Unfortunately I don’t think any glow-stick people are on this forum to read the complaints. I tend to assume they are not our usual festivarians, but are folks who are used to other more main-stream festivals like Coachella.

:flower
Are we not there to listen to the music?
IMHO throwing any physical projectile at anytime is the antithesis of the festivarian spirit. Yes, it is all in “good fun”, but aren’t we already having more fun than is humanly possible?

Just my 2¢

:peace

Marshmallows may not hurt when they’re fresh, but the one that caught me in the temple had been drying out at someone’s campsite for a few days. :slight_smile:

My issue with the marshmallows is the kids see us doing it, think it’s funny, then start throwing projectiles with no regard of who is in their path. I have both eyes right now because I have super-human quick hands. :thumbsup Lobbing is okay, but some of these children think they are Nolan Ryan. Flowers, yes. :flower

I love fun as much as the next person, and while throwing the marshmallows may be fun, and not necessarily dangerous - as someone who volunteered to help clean-up the morning after, the festival grounds were a mess! And the marshmallows don’t stay in a solid-easy-to-clean-up state. They crush, melt, and stick to the ground. Pretty unpleasant/difficult to clean up. Plus, just because someone is going to clean it up doesn’t mean that it’s ok to make a mess. They are fun to watch fly through the sky though!!! :lol

Glow sticks are wasteful - no recycling, no reusing. I wish they were banned.

Melted marshmallows on a hot festival tarp STINKS! Stepping in said goop STINkS! And having a marshmallow splatter your full beer all over your face just as you’re lifting drink to mouth…though the timing is comically bizarre… Well, it also STINKs!

The glow sticks are definitely getting more obnoxious each year… But I dig the LCD hoopla hoops, etc… And we got a priceless video of my three year old dancing with her glow stick…

:flower flowers. Or no projectiles at all.