Prince and the perils of parking

On Saturday night, Prince was still playing when a sizable percentage of his audience started streaming toward the parking lot. On Sunday, some Coachella organizers were saying privately that one reason might have been the excruciating traffic jam on Friday night when a boneheaded blunder by some staffers had a key exit point closed when it was supposed to be open. 

The result: Some people sat in their cars for two hours before even getting out of the lot. "I think on Saturday night some people were just so burned by the night before that they left early," one mid-level staffer said. "I think it hurt Prince. On Saturday night the situation was much, much better. "

-- Geoff Boucher 

Comments

[Gleb Jolie]

Parking fears were definitely a reason we left Prince's show early. We heard him pull out the surprise version of Creep as we were almost out of the festival area. Reading about how much more he did after that made me wish I didn't feel compelled to beat the herd. I'm disappointed that I believed the curfew, too. I thought it would be fairly closely enforced, another reason I thought I could leave when I did. Other than that, my whole experience, and that of my friends, gets a solid A grade all around.

[cris]

yes, prince was amazing. i too left early, not so much because of parking, but because my feet just couldn't support me anymore!

[Tom]

I'd wait in a traffic jam for four hours just to see Prince. The people who left early probably went to Coachella just to brag to others that they did, not to value the music.