An Upstream attendee expresses his unhappiness about one of the festival’s more annoying policies.
I am writing to outline my concerns about the bag policy at the Upstream Music Fest + Summit this year, and request an official response. The bag policy didn’t make sense and was harmful to the festival experience for a number of reasons.
In the following, I will make reference to womens’ wallets. While men may also carry a wallet not in a pocket, the vast majority of affected people at the Upstream were women.
The policy is unusual for festival environments in general. For this reason, it should have been communicated more proactively, more clearly, and in advance. The way most people learned about the policy was from a door person at a venue, in the moment they were trying to gain entry to see a band. These door people were not consistently prepared to describe, explain, or enforce the policy. In fact, the communication and implementation throughout the weekend and per each venue was very inconsistent.
Some venues (possibly all, who knows?) exempted anyone with an artist identification from the bag policy. Some venues also exempted friends of artists. These exemptions were honored regardless of whether the artist was playing at that venue or on that day. In other words, this policy was carried out in strict detail for some people, then not enforced at all for hundreds of people belonging to a parallel group. This undermines trust in the reasoning for the policy, and makes it appear arbitrary rather than based on safety or compliance.
The policy itself is over the line of being sensible. I watched many women being turned away for having wallets just barely larger than the 6.5″ allowed. The idea is that somehow a 7″ wallet represents a threat, or some added cost to the festival? I accommodated one person in my party by simply putting her wallet in my pocket, which effectively made it permissible. This policy is both senseless and unenforceable if a “bag” considered too big actually fits in a pocket. On this point alone, the policy isn’t well considered.
It seems clear that the policy is based on the CenturyLink Field stadium policy, and for that reason, I acknowledge there are possibly compliance reasons it had to be followed for main stage. However, the decision to extend this to the entire festival is perplexing. All of the participating venues already have policies about women’s wallets that work perfectly well the rest of the year.
It’s my understanding that the CenturyLink Fields bag policy originated as an NFL policy in 2013, as reported by the Seattle PI and the Seattle Times. It deserves to be explained why festival organizers would extend an NFL policy intended for stadium football games to cover all of the small independent venues participating in the festival.
The Seattle Times article covering the NFL policy points out that the 4.5″ x 6.5″ size limit drove sales of clutch purses opportunistically designed for the policy. “They’ve sold like crazy,” a sales manager said. Similarly, the Upstream festival policy forced surely hundreds of women to buy a $10 locker for any purse 7″ long or 5″ wide. I know first hand that wallets were being measured just that closely, and the only message all staff seemed consistent on was: “You need to buy a locker.”
Festival organizers should keep in mind that people carry these wallets so they can keep their ID, credit cards, cash, and other personal items safely in one place. People choose different modes of fashion, and many people opt for clothes without pockets. They carry purses and wallets. I carried far more items in my pockets throughout the festival than could fit in any of the wallets discussed here. In fact, I had room to also put my friend’s wallet in one of my pockets. This policy is effectively biased against people who wear clothes without pockets (usually women), and as stated above, is biased against people who don’t have an artist ID.
If everyone, including artists and VIPs, were inconvenienced so arbitrarily I believe there would be an outcry. It’s worrying that the implementation and execution of the policy made it likely that many artists didn’t even know it was being enforced on people, as it would have been invisible to them.
If this policy is considered innovative, progressive, or forward-thinking in some way, that needs to be explained. People should be educated about this, so they can appreciate the wisdom of it.
I hope you will either explain the full motivation and intent of this policy, and allow a public discussion of its merits, or consider a different policy for next year. Most of all, I hope Upstream aims to be a more progressive and inclusive organization than the NFL.