It’s still unknown what triggered the frenzy of Londoners buying their Oh My! Festival tickets. It’s similar to the same force which propelled them to buy their Afronation tickets. Perhaps it was due to FOMO or being able to see Lil Baby, Roddy Rich, Wizkid and Meek Mill all in one place. Meek’s probation issues and criminal history has made it impossible for him to perform for his London fans. Despite having very little knowledge, or no knowledge at all of one of Europe’s largest Hip-Hop festivals, Londoners bought their tickets at an unprecedented rate.
Oh My!, has previously always been a one-day festival turned into a two-day festival to compensate for the excessive levels of demand. It had been predicated that it would just be a replication of Fyre Festival. It wasn’t quite that, but had there been a Billy McFarland within reach, he would have encountered many annoyed festival-goers.
So how was the festival?
A logistical nightmare.
Poor Organisation
Long queues getting into the festival were naturally expected. But security ran out of wristbands, yes, wristbands! There were no more golden circle wristbands and when questioned by attendees, security simply said ‘We’ve just run out, please come back a bit later’.
Attendees couldn’t pay for anything using cash nor card at the bar, you had to purchase tokens. So you essentially cued twice, once to get the tokens and then to get food, drinks and balloons (yes, balloons. They sold them at the festival). There was also no way to work out the value of a token so it was difficult to gauge how many to buy from the beginning. I worked out later that 3 tokens was a single and 2 token a bottle of water. But that may have varied bar to bar.
Dead Time
There was a lot of dead time at the festival. Artists had rather short set times and it seemed organisers solved this issue by packing the itinerary with DJ sets. Artists also didn’t adhere to set times. Roddy Rich was scheduled to come out on the main stage at 5.30pm but didn’t grace us with his presence till 8pm. Kojo Funds was plucked from the 2nd stage for another performance just to fill time. And despite Torey Lanez and Wizkid being on the line-up, they were a no-show. With acts not adhering to schedule and it being hard to navigate between the the stages, it meant once you were in a position, you were more or less stuck there.
Restricted View
Even if you’re at the very back of a festival crowd, you don’t feel as if you’re missing out nor unable to hear things. I’ve seen Jay-Z and Miguel from such far distances, but the screens and sound compensated for the endless space between us. But this wasn’t the case at Oh My!. If you were at the back, your view was incredibly restricted due to the screen sizes and sound levels. The best views were enjoyed by those like myself with Golden Circle tickets. That shouldn’t be the case.
Meek Mill
The festivals only saving grace was Meek Mill who put on a stellar performance. Sporting a chain with his mug shot from when he was 18, Meek Mill tethered between his past and present selves, performing songs like Ima Boss and Uptown Vibes. Draped in all black, he emerged to Intro from his latest LP, Championships. explosions of smoke accompanying his eruptive chorus. It’s either Meek was unsure of Amsterdam’s geographical location or knew the sheer amount of Londoners in the crowd, but he repeatedly said ‘Shout London, we in the U.K’.
Irrespective of the mishaps and blunders, I thoroughly enjoyed myself (I know, odd right?) But I’m a festival fanatic and I only really wanted to see Meek Mill. For a music festival, all acts bar Meek gave sub-par performances. The festival was what you made it and you simply had to create your own vibe. It was as if us Londoners were waiting for an explosion of litness to change the atmosphere but it just didn’t come. Perhaps the city’s liberal marijuana laws had the attendees too lethargic to really enjoy? Speaking to some Londoners after the festival, most rated the festival a mere 5 or 6 out of 10. Only die-hard Meek fans gave the festival a high score.
Oh My! was a series of organisational blunders but it had the capacity to be a brilliant festival. As one attendee put it ‘It was a 2/10, I won’t be back next year’. Thank-you next seems to be the general attitude.
AkachiPriscilla 