Culture
Beach Music Festival Cancelled Because the Beach Is Gone
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
Ocean Way Festival, the inaugural coastal music celebration scheduled for the Santa Monica shoreline, was cancelled this week after Hurricane Marie's storm surf and runoff caused what organizers described as "significant beach erosion," which is the official event-planning term for the venue dissolving into the Pacific Ocean.
The festival had been marketed as a premier beachside experience. The beach, having reviewed the programming schedule, apparently disagreed and excused itself.
In a statement released Saturday, organizers said the erosion had made it "no longer safe" for the festival to continue, a phrase that raises the obvious question of what, precisely, they had planned to do about the fact that the floor of their outdoor venue was now part of the continental shelf. Safety, in this case, meaning: there is no beach. There is ocean where the beach was. We have checked.
California Governor Gavin Newsom offered a brief comment at a press conference, expressing sympathy for the cancellation and noting that California's coastline "remains one of our greatest assets," a statement delivered approximately six hours after one of those assets underwent significant liquidation.
The cancelled lineup included several acts who had been billing themselves as essential summer experiences. Headliners Cannons, who make shimmery, oceanic dream-pop, were scheduled to perform literally beside the ocean, which is either beautiful synergy or the kind of hubris that ancient Greeks wrote tragedies about. The ocean, apparently, felt the tribute insufficient.
Ticket holders began flooding social media not long after the announcement, which was itself a curious choice of verb given the circumstances.
"I drove four hours for this," wrote one attendee on Instagram, beside a photograph of what appeared to be a parking lot adjacent to a very large amount of water. "The vibe is still immaculate though."
A second post, from someone who described themselves as a "festival lifestyle content creator," featured a video of waves crashing over what had previously been the main stage footprint, captioned: "Nature said no aux cord." It has 340,000 views.
A spokesperson for the venue confirmed that full refunds would be issued, and that the organization was "deeply committed to bringing Ocean Way back to Santa Monica in the future," pending, one assumes, the return of Santa Monica.
Meteorologists noted that Hurricane Marie, which struck unusually close to the Southern California coast, produced surf between ten and fifteen feet, which is extraordinary for the region and also, it must be said, not the vibe the festival's Instagram grid had been cultivating. There were a lot of golden-hour photographs of a pristine shoreline. There were no golden-hour photographs of a coastline being methodically consumed by a Category 1 hurricane, which, in fairness, is a difficult aesthetic to monetise.
The deeper irony, which nobody in the press release seemed eager to address, is that a festival called Ocean Way was, in the end, entirely at the mercy of the ocean. The ocean did not negotiate. The ocean did not respond to emails. The ocean had not purchased a VIP wristband and therefore felt no particular obligation to observe the programme.
Refunds are expected to be processed within seven to ten business days.
The beach has not committed to a timeline.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ocean-way-festival-cancels-inaugural-event-hurricane-marie-1235625706/