The drama surrounding the expected Dave Matthews Band Festival in the New York City Metro to take place over the Fourth of July Weekend has heated up considerably over the past few days. Here's a cliff's notes on what's been going on.
On Sunday April 18th, the New York Post wrote the following:
James F. Lima, president of the Governor's Island Preservation and Education Corporation, and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, decided to call off a secret plan for a massive Fourth of July weekend concert camp-in with the Dave Matthews Band.
While the proposal was canned because of the logistics of getting thousands of people to and from the island's ferry on a major holiday weekend, other smaller events are not being ruled out for later in the summer.
"This is not like Times Square where a million people can disappear in minutes," Lima said
Fans on Message boards immediately expressed their disappointment. It showed up as news on AntsMarching and Nancies, and all seemed hopeless.
Then Ants retracted their news story, and later put it up again indicating another source corroborating the information pointing to conclusion that the event had been cancelled.
The story wasn't over yet, however. If you look closely at the the NY Post article, it says that the problem with the festival was the logistics of the event. Weekly Davespeak readers know that the logistics of moving tens of thousands of people is not as serious a problem as President of the GIPEC was making it out to be.
We researched events of a similar magnitude to the expected New York City DMB Festival, and concluded that it was in fact possible to move the number of people likely to attend such an event. Our DMB Festival Ferry Logistics Article.
Now, it seems that DMB Management has gotten in touch with Nancies to let them know that "one way or another, the show will go on." Further, Antsmarching.org reports that their source is now saying that the festival will not be an overnight camping event, but offer continuous rides to and from the island.
This news actually fits in perfectly with the original news break of this festival, when a fan first broke the news about the festival on Antsmarching.org in early March. This fan claimed that 500 rooms had been blocked off in hotels in lower Manhattan for a DMB Festival on Governor's Island. These kind of reservations would be required for the large influx of fans looking for a place to sleep--especially if there is to be no camping provided.
Of course, still no official word from the Warehouse on what is really going on. Stay tuned for more news as it develops.
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April 20th, 2004 
