A friend of mine who works part time in concert staffing once clued me into a fascinating tidbit of music trivia. The most difficult crowds aren't at teen idol, metal, or hardcore rap shows. Nope, the concertgoer that most strikes fear into hearts of your friendly local event staff are those of the country variety.
Why? Overabundance of females creates incredibly long lines at the bathrooms. A plethora of underagers with fake IDs give security their fair share of work. And last but certainly not least - alcohol. Oh, the alcohol. All the alcohol.
As we waited at the media checkpoint for our PR rep to escort us into the photo pit of the Budweiser Stage, I eyed wobbly-legged young'uns attempting to pry themselves out of taxi cab seats. Even as we exited the venue after our standard 3 songs of photography, people were still filing in. Yes, perhaps they were late, but this additional time allowed them to partake in a few more cupfulls of the good stuff.
Love it or hate it, the genres sells tickets. Tickets to the show were in such high demand that the scalpers themselves actually ran out of tickets!
This was my first time doing a 'soundboard' shoot at this venue. Rather than being stationed in a front row photo pit, we were located behind the 100s level, and armed with a step stool, a big lens, and aching arms. Despite having a 70-200mm telephonto zoom lens, I found that I still had to do a fair amount of cropping on my photos.
You can see the full photo set over at Live In Limbo.
SAM HUNT
MAREN MORRIS
#concertphotography