bumbershoot me in the head

Every year for as long as I can remember, the Seattle Center hosts Bumbershoot, a three-day (or sometimes four day) cultural exhibition that mostly focuses on music. Scheduled for Labor Day weekend, Bumbershoot has long been a great deal for local folks because of low-priced tickets and an eclectic range of bands and musicians.

Over the last six years or so, the tickets have gone up. A lot. The last year I paid for tickets (1999), I was able to buy a two-day pass for $15, which also included TicketMaster's service charge. Back then, entry into the festival was $10; now, it's $30. What the hell?

Although the festival has been gaining a lot of traction in the last three years, and therefore more notable acts have been booked, I can help but think that this is all a bad idea. Is it going to get to the point where it will be an exclusive event and tickets can only be afforded by the extremely wealthy? The spirit of our homegrown festival is that it's for locals to enjoy and cheap enough for a kid with a paper route to go watch Beck, or whoever.

Now it seems as it's catered to rich hipsters and grups, those who don't mind blowing a portion of their coke money to ironically watch 3 Inches of Blood shred for 30 minutes.

I would love to see Bumbershoot scaled back as a low-key, low-priced event, as it was when I was growing up, but seeing all the tourist money coming through, I doubt that'll happen. Shame on you, Bumbershoot.