Music Festivals – Rain or Shine??

Recently Brian and I bought VIP tickets for the RibAmerica festival in St. Louis.  That was probably a mistake.  Now keep in mind that this festival is free if you arrive before 4:00 PM and only $5 after that for standing room only.  The VIP tickets are an additional charge for seating in an area roped off right in front of the stage.  We attended this festival the year prior and decided that if there was a band that we really wanted to see that we would definitely get the VIP seating. 

Last year we saw Night Ranger and they were awesome!  When we found out that they were coming back this year we decided to spend the money and get VIP seats.  The tickets started at $30 plus all the TicketMaster fees ended up around $40 each.  The tickets came in the mail and they stated this is a “Rain or Shine” show.  The tickets are good for the whole day but unfortunately Night Ranger was the only band playing that we wanted to see that day.

Well it rained like crazy the morning of the show so we decided to wait until later in the afternoon to go down to the festival.  The rain finally let up so I packed my rain poncho in my fanny pack (just in case since it is a rain or shine show)and we went down in time to catch Jonny Lang also.  We didn’t even know who he was but his performance definitely took the sting out of the price of the tickets.  Our seats by the way were center stage, 4 rows back.  I think they were the best seats I’ve ever had for a concert.

After Jonny Lang, it started raining again so they delayed the start of the Night Ranger show.  Finally they came on stage and after playing 7 songs, it started raining again so they stopped the show.  That was it.  They never came back out to finish the show.  We were a little disappointed because we had really been looking forward to seeing Night Ranger and they hadn’t even played our favorite songs yet.  We were also angry that we had spent so much money for what we got.  Where do you send complaints: TicketMaster, promoters of RibAmerica Fest, Night Ranger or City of St. Louis??

So what does “Rain or Shine” mean anyway?  I thought it meant they would play no matter what.  I guess it means you will pay no matter what.  We’ll definitely think twice before buying VIP seats again for the RibAmerica Festival. 

  Here we are waiting for the MetroLink to take us to the Soldiers Memorial Park.  It looked like the rest of the day would be nice.  Ha !  Tricked us.