For those of you who do not know what Jamboree in the Hills is, it is a four day country music festival. The original intent of this article was to go over changes that were being made and how everyone was reacting to them, however this morning (12/9) it was announced that things were going to change back to the old ways again.
The changes were announced to the public on Monday, but there were roomers going around before hand about the changes. The changes that Live Nation posed on Jamboree in the Hills were: changing the name to Jambo country, not allowing coolers, and reducing the days from four to three, only being able to bring in one 20 oz bottle of water and one bag of snacks, and changing the redneck run to the morning run.
Jamboree fans were furious when they heard about the changes, and rightfully so. Jamboree in the hills has been going on for 40 years and has several long standing traditions that make the concert so unique. If its one thing that can be learned from this is that if something has a long standing tradition, it is hard to break it and if you try people will be outraged and voice their opinion.
Jamboree in the hills has two sings written bout it and a newer one states something about a custom cooler. People build these amazing coolers on wheels and sometimes it takes them all year to make the cooler. By banning the coolers, this would get people really mad. One of the morning traditions is the redneck run, which Live Nation wanted to change to the morning run. You don't mess with names of traditions, which brings me to the name change. Live nation wanted to change the name of the concert to Jambo Country. Well Jambo country is different than the country concert that has been happening for 40 years.
Originally Jamboree in the Hills was a three day concert, but it got so popular it became a four day concert. This isn't the major thing that upset people about the concert, but it was that the one day sale tickets were $175, which was $10 less than the $185 one day sale price of last years jumbo and the $175 one day sale of Jamboree two years ago.
People (I was one of them) were outraged over all of the changes. The concert is the third weekend in July and if everything we drank had to be bought in the venue, no one would drink anything because it would be too expensive and that would probably cause more harm than good.
Jamboree in the Hills Facebook had a 5 star rating until Sunday when the roomers were flying and then especially Monday. I looked at the rating on wednesday and it had dropped from 5 stars to 2. Almost all of the comments said the same thing, people started Facebook pages boycotting live nation and jamboree. There was a petition that went around to live nation asking them to change things back, people calling and emailing live nation. The county commissioner even said that the county would not be out there fixing the things that needed to with the proposed changes. Businesses were worried about the income from that time of the year.
This morning, live nation came out and said that they changed everything back, and the one day sale would be $150. This seems to appease everyone, and most importantly people are happy to have their Jamboree back, instead of the "improved" one Live nation was proposing.
If you feel strongly about something, voice your opinion because it might just be heard and if there's enough people with the same opinion things might change.
