Well, hey there, good people! How goes it? I hope it goes well.
The hot, gross days of summer are finally over. Spooky Season is upon us. Rejoice!
Of course, before we do that, we should recap September, since there’s a decent chunk of events to cover. Let’s hop to it.
First and foremost, I sadly don’t have much to report on the writing front. Loathe as I am to admit it, I feel like much of my ambition for tackling writing-related things was sort of nonexistent this past month. I basically extended my “break” from August into September. Still, I did manage to get a few things done; my writing group has been very helpful with keeping ideas flowing, and I’ve been chipping away at my latest Blood Sisters story. I’ve otherwise been moving at a slower pace, though. I aim to change that during October, however, as I keep working on new stories and submitting things to literary magazines.
I’m also now trying to prepare myself for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which takes place during November. For those who are unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo serves as a little challenge of sorts where writers commit to writing what essentially amounts to a full novel in one month. The tentative goal is around 50,000 words. I have no idea if I’ll be able to complete such a task, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. After all, why not?
My other big event for September was Blue Ridge Rock Fest. If you’re reading this and you listen to metal/punk rock/metalcore/whatever, I’m going to imagine you’ve heard about this debacle of a festival. Holy moly.
My friends and I attended Blue Ridge in 2021, and it was…fine. The lineup was tremendous, and in hindsight, we truly had a great time, but the festival itself was sort of a logistical nightmare. Some key issues we encountered included inconsistent shuttle buses, not enough food vendors to accommodate the oversold crowd, and what seemed like a complete lack of security. Last year’s festival, however, sounded like it fixed many previous issues, and as the lineup for 2023’s festival kept getting better and better as it was announced piecemeal (which was actually very annoying), we figured, “Eh, screw it, let’s try this one again.” What a mistake that turned out to be.
Blue Ridge Rock Fest 2023 was just shy of being a complete and utter failure. What was supposed to be four full days of nonstop rock n’ roll action turned into a day and a half of some great performances and a travesty of even more logistical bullshit. Day one actually seemed fine to start off with. The buses ran smoothly, there was plenty to see and do, and even though it was brutally hot out, we had some good times.
Then, by about six, it started storming, and everything got shut down. Nothing to really be done about that—we can’t control the weather. The rain offered a bit of fun, though, as a bunch of people hunkered down inside a root beer vendor tent for a while, which then involved us all hollering and bantering with each other. After the rain died off, we wandered the festival grounds for a bit until security told us all to leave. And this is where the real fun began…
We hopped on the line for the bus back to the parking lot around 7:30/8:00-ish, and we ended up waiting on that line for roughly another three and a half hours. We didn’t get back to our BnB until about half past midnight, if not a bit later. No, I’m not making that up. I guess the festival just had no plans in place for getting everyone out in a quick and orderly manner in the event of a weather emergency.
And I get it, the storm was sudden and threw things out of whack, but the volume of people leaving at that time would have probably been about the same as at the end of the night after the headliners for the day, so why were they so ill-prepared to get everyone out? Where were the buses all day that they weren’t ready or on standby to get everyone out at a faster pace? It was a mess. And we had to wait; there were no alternatives for leaving. If you tried to walk to the lots (which, in either direction, was a two-hour walk in pitch-black darkness), the police would turn you around.
I won’t lie, I got a bit anxious during that whole thing; it all felt abundantly unsafe. Still, we eventually got through that, and Friday was thankfully a much better day. We saw the bands we wanted to see, had some good food from the vendors, and got out at a normal time. Easy peasy.
And then Saturday and Sunday just didn’t happen because more inclement weather was expected. At least, that was what they told us. Yes, judging from our weather apps, the rest of the weekend wasn’t looking good. But then the days rolled around, and things seemed mostly fine. Furthermore, when we started to hear about all the bullshit behind the scenes of the festival, the picture just got uglier and uglier. From what we heard, there was a lot of mistreatment going on with the bands and festival staff, to the point that many individuals in the latter camp straight up left for the weekend. Of course, the festival organizers are denying all of that, but that’s to be expected.
As of the posting of this blog update, we’re all still waiting for partial refunds. And once all of that is settled, I’ll be amazed if this festival makes it another year. And even if it does continue, my friends and I will be thrilled to never go again. Fuck Blue Ridge.
The rest of the weekend was spent engaging in what other shenanigans we could find to do in the region between Danville, Virginia, and both Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina. On Sunday, we actually found a little Oktoberfest to attend in Raleigh, which was amusing enough. Otherwise, we just hung out. Not an awful weekend, all things considered, but good lord, my friends and I can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to attending festivals these days. Oh well.
Anywho, with that rant out of the way, September was otherwise a totally chill month. Celebrated a few birthdays, attended a few concerts (which was good, because they involved bands that we might have seen at the festival on the days that got canned), and played way too much Baldur’s Gate 3 (this game is currently consuming me). Oh, I also got promoted to a senior editor position at work, so that’s neat!
Not much else to be said beyond all that. Now I’m just getting into the spooky spirit for October. Just after the halfway point of September, all the pieces for my Spider-Man cosplay for arrived, and I couldn’t be happier with how it all looks. If you follow me on socials, you’ve probably already seen it, but I’ll have more pics to share after New York Comic-Con.
Yeah, October’s going to be a blast. Here’s hoping Spooky Season treats all of you well. Until next time, peace!