This review is based on attendance at a concert event not the actual distillery. Last night Sunday, July 13th I attended the Blues Traveler and Gin Blossoms concert ft Spin Doctors with my girlfriend and two older friends in their 70’s. The music from all three bands was great! Acoustics sounded excellent and the outdoor atmosphere with a view of the river would have been great except for the venue itself, the grass seating area (if you want to call it that), and the traffic and handling of this by the event staff and local police. I will address all of these issues separately.
First off the event was completely ill-prepared for a crowd the size of last night’s concert. Doors opened at 5 so our group car pooled and thought we have ourselves ample time to arrive. Directions said 40 mins but exiting off 28 northbound from Pittsburgh took 20-30 mins longer than expected and was a harbinger of things to come later. We thanked ourselves for leaving as early as we did because we didn’t miss any of the show due to traffic getting in.
Secondly, Mother Nature did this event no favors but still the IC Light Distillery was poorly prepared for any rain event. Sunday night’s downpour decimated the haphazardly strewn hay around turning the “grass seating area” into a disgusting muddy slop. Why wasn’t the lawn area properly seeded months in advance to hosting hugely popular concert events?? To make matters worse the assembled plastic platforms that appeared in certain locations were unstable and slippery at best. How come nobody thought to pour cement walkways around the lawn? The only option for restrooms were overcrowded disgusting port-a-johns. Food trucks seem like a good idea but when the lines are long and slow-moving it creates an annoying situation for all.
Lastly, the exit home. This was the worst part. Our group decided to leave 3 songs into the final band Blues Traveler’s set; we did tbis primarily to get a start on the traffic which we anticipated would be bad based on our entry into the facility. Quick side note: why would anyone build a huge complex in this particular location? There is no access to the distillery from 28 if you are traveling south towards the venue. This creates a bottleneck for traffic which was surely on display Sun evening. We had intentionally parked near the entrance/exit when we first parked before the show. We had done so in order to get out of traffic easier after the show. Our one party member just underwent knee surgery earlier in the year so we thought tbis was a good plan of action. Our exit was not only thwarted by event staff due to them cordoning off the easiest path to exit the facility with orange parking cones but they forced us and everyone else out a convoluted mess that included cars parked in all directions and essentially causing a gridlock that lasted an hour and a half! Nobody moved in fact from 9:30 till roughly 11pm. Event staff didn’t know how to direct. Party buses were left surrounded in cars from all directions. We even witnessed a fender bender as one frustrated motorist tried to reverse directions to forge a new path out. If I ever wanted to participate in a Panic Room I don’t have to because we all got the experience trying to get home last night!
Final notes: my girlfriend and I attend many concerts, games, events every year. We have been at PNC Park, PPG Paints Arena, Acrisure, Starlake, Jergels, Mr Smalls and to events as far as Nashville, Toronto, DC, Camden, Cleveland and have never encountered a traffic nightmare trying to get home as horrific and uncoordinated as this one. Sad that the venue played such an awful role and tarnished what should have been a fantastic night! I feel especially bad for Blues Traveler who probably performed in front of 50 people because everyone was stuck in gridlock in the parking lot trying to get home. I will never attend another show here ever again and would recommend everyone else...
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