QUINCY, Wash. — Some fans looking forward to seeing the Lumineers at the Gorge last Friday were left disappointed, as traffic from back-to-back concerts, plus increased security checks, caused hour-long delays.
Inland Northwest Lumineers fans counted down the band's performance at the Gorge Amphitheatre.
Lori McDonald and her daughter say they had tickets since March.
"We were definitely excited," McDonald said. "We had it planned for a long time before."
McDonald and her daughter left three hours early from Deer Park for the Friday night concert. However, blocks from the venue, their excitement slowly faded.
"She said, 'let's go now' and I said 'sure we can go early,'" McDonald said. "And we weren't early. We were late."
The mother-daughter duo ran into bottleneck traffic from fellow Lumineers fans and future Gorge concertgoers.
"Every direction we could look, there was traffic just backed up," McDonald said.
According to Live Nation, doors for the Lumineers opened at 5:30 p.m. Friday. But, by this time, camping for the Eric Church concerts Saturday and Sunday had already opened.
McDonald says she sat in standstill traffic for hours and only caught the opening act's final song.
"People were getting out of their cars and walking to the venue," McDonald said. "We were considering leaving our car in a field and walking if we had to."
McDonald says she's thankful she was able to the see the Lumineers get onstage. But, she knows not everyone had the same luck.
"There were empty seats all around us that those people never showed up," McDonald said.
The Gorge issued $50 in concert credit to fans who entered the concert after the Lumineers were already on stage. KREM 2 reached out to Live Nation, who owns the venue, to ask if additional refunds will be provided.
The Gorge issued the following statement in response:
"We are proactively providing a full ticket refund to purchasers who missed any part of The Lumineers performance. We are committed to ensuring fans visiting The Gorge Amphitheatre have a great experience and that was not the case on Friday. Refunds will be processed to purchasers by Ticketmaster within the next five business days."
Earlier this summer, a man was able to get a gun into one of the Gorge's campgrounds, where he shot and killed two people and injured several others. The deadly shooting resulted in stricter and more thorough security checks, which also played a part in entry delays.
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