My last post contained a little foreshadowing about the content of this post. I figured I had a lot to say about Warped Tour and it was too much to cram into one post; especially for the negative content. Sorry to say, but I’m still on the rant. It’s really sad that the overwhelming feeling I got from Warped this year was that I was being sold to. Maybe I’m just getting older and wiser.
Anyway, the next thing I ran into at Warped was the religious zealots. You can count on them showing up every year. For some reason, you only ever see them inside the halls of the Metrodome. I think they’re afraid if they go outside, they’ll have to actually listen to the artists that are there. Their tactics are always the same. They walk up to you and say something like “Do you want to hear something that will change your life?” Smoothly, they slip you a book with catchy titles like “The Truth, You, and Your Future.” To those people, let me clue you in on something: while Warped Tour was on Sunday, no one goes to Warped Tour to find God! If they did, they’d be in church instead. So leave the kids alone and go hole yourself up in some compound in Texas.
I also take exception to the whole ticket system for food. First of all, you can’t bring any food in save for a single open bottle of water. When the majority of people are jumping around all day expending energy, it’s a safe bet they’re going to need to eat. Apparently punks only like to eat fried junk food because that’s the only thing you can buy. Hamburgers, corn dogs, brats, fried cheese curds, nachos, french fries, gyros, and ice cream are the only things on the menu. When you do decide to give in, you can only buy blocks of 10 tickets for $5 each. It usually works out though because everything is so over-priced, you’d have a hard time spending less than that. For instance, a 20 oz bottle of Gatorade is 8 tickets: the equivalent of $4! Bottled water, 6 tickets ($3). A gyro sandwich, 14 tickets ($7). To top it off, you almost never use up all your tickets so end up wasting that money. Fortunately, the Metrodome is open, so you can use the bathrooms and water fountains for free water.
