Just got back from Inglewood, California where HARD SUMMER 2009 was officially a bust.

Just after I saw JackBeats in the underground room, I went up to the mainfloor to see Chromeo play, but something wasn’t right. They were suppose to be on at 9:55pm but there was dead silence.

It started when we tried to go back and forth between the underground floor to the mainstage. They blocked off the underground area because I suppose it was getting too crowded. THEY BLOCKED IT OFF AT 9PM! My friend Hua was telling me the night is going to be a disaster because as most people know, raves/massives do not become alive until midnight.

Ok. So after getting enough of Jackbeats and seeing Rick Rubin and Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers near the backstage, we head to grab some seats for Chromeo at the mainstage.

They should have played

House of Pain vs Mickey Slim – ‘Jump Around’ (Deadmau5 Remix )

Forward to 2:20 for some madness.

We get our seats and notice how the Forum is packed to near capacity, but nothing too out of the ordinary at raves. It’s 10:30pm and people are getting agitated from the lack of music. People on ecstacy in a large room w/o music is a HUGE buzzkill–lightshows can only hold off ravers you off for so long before you get bored.

The next hour pretty much is lame. There are guys on stage telling people to back up off the balconies because there are reports of people jumping off the balconies to reach the ground floor, so they want to clear the first 5 rows near the balcony. However, the douchey guy on stage are blaming these people for holding up the rave, but these people were waiting forever to get these seats.  Don’t yell at these people who paid upwards of $80 for trying to get good seats when the fault wasn’t even theirs.

Long story short, they couldn’t clear the rows within a given amount of time so the firemarshall shuts down the party. Riot police come in and kick all the ravers out.

This video sums it up from a youtube user

I thought there would be riots going on afterwards, but it was just some broken glass and port-o-potties pushed over.

HARD events are definitely going to be taking a major hit after this failure. This is the first event of HARD since Gary Richards(founder of HARD)(image left) and the highly aclaimed Bill Silva Productions partnered up.

These are taken from the website, hopefully it won’t be a huge hassle to deal with. I will try this weekend.

Refund instructions:

Ticketmaster Sales:
Beginning Monday, August 10th at 10 am, if you purchased your tickets through ticketmaster.com or a Ticketmaster phone center, the credit card you used to purchase the tickets will automatically be credited. If you purchased your ticket through a Ticketmaster outlet, you will need to bring your ticket to the point of purchase to obtain a refund.

Groovetickets Sales:
If you purchased your tickets online through Groovetickets.com, a refund for the total face value of your order will be automatically applied to the credit card you used. Please allow up to five business days for the credit to appear on your banking statement.

Retail Stores / Venue Box Office:
If you purchased your tickets through any of the retail stores or from the venue box office, you may obtain a refund by mailing your ticket(s) to:

The Forum
3900 West Manchester Blvd
Inglewood, CA 90305
Attn: Hard Refund Department

Please include the mailing address where you would like the refund check mailed to as well as an e-mail address. Include the payee’s full name for check payment or full credit card information. Please allow up to 30 days for your refund to be processed.

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This post is tagged bloody beetroots, chromeo, gary richards, Hard Summer Refund, hardfest, hardsummer, inglewood, jackbeats, jumpers, Police, ravers, the forum, underworld