PromoWest Fest Tickets

The music, the VIP experience, organization, food trucks, wrist bands, etc... All lived up to more than I expected

Overall I had a blast Friday night of Promowest Fest! I went primarily to see The Flaming Lips (love them!) but was also excited to see Ryan Adams (love him!). Fitz and the Tantrums put on an amazing show and I'll definitely look up their music (I kind of live under a rock when it comes to new music). I have two major complaints ... and that's what everyone wants to know about in reviews, right? 1) The stage for the sound board/sound people was very large, high up, and right in the middle of the way. I don't anything about music technicalities, but this seemed to be bigger and more obtrusive than any sound board set-up area than I've ever seen in my life. Unless you got yourself in front of it way before a performance you had no hope of seeing the stage, not even in miniature. All you saw was the back of the sound set-up place which luckily did have a screen on it, but still. I'm not one of those people who fight for the front, but it would be nice to see the stage. 2) The cashless money system. $2 to get money on the wristband, $3.50 to be refunded what I didn't spend. I've accepted the fact that you can't buy tickets anymore without service fees, and that a Bud Light will cost $6, but to make me spend money to be able to spend money? Really?!

Terrible! Mac Miller was supposed to be there and then canceled last minute. Should've got partial refund.

Venue was uncomfortable. Not appropriately handicap equipped. Over priced food and drinks with no options to use actual cash. You could only use their credit loading system which cost even more money to use. Drunken, rude people.

This is the first year for the PromoWest Fest so did not expect a perfectly run festival. The biggest problem was not properly scheduling the performers. Some acts like the Wombats should've gotten more time than a 1/2 hour. Others like Ryan Adams got a full hour plus a slot on the main stage just before the headliners (Flaming Lips). Fitz & the Tantrums should've been in that slot! Plus the headliner was not scheduled to start until 10pm. Knowing there was an 11pm curfew at that venue, that was not nearly enough time for the Flaming Lips! Making things worse, they didn't have enough time to set up for their elaborate stage show so didn't actually come on until 10:15, then promptly had to quit at 11...so they only did about half of their normal show...very disappointing!

Great lineup, great schedule, flaming lips were the best show of the weekend.

Lineup was varied and headliners were very good. Plenty of local food and drink options, along with some interesting shops. There was plenty of bathrooms and vendors so waiting in line was minimal. Only complaints were having all the bathrooms on only one side of the festival was a bit annoying, and making everyone with a 3 day pass exit out one location was bothersome. Love the bracelet ticket and electronic payment system. No cash was fantastic!

PromoWest didn't pull it off, not even close. Beautiful weather, nice grass, good sound, good beer selection and food selection....that's the good news. Now the bad news: cancelled acts, shortened setlists, not enough stages (3 were promised), not enough bands, wristband fees, forgetting to have people get over 21 wristbands when they came in, overly large VIP area, too high prices for tickets. Overall, well worth it for $50, but not $90. Doubt most attendees will come back next year. That's a shame because Columbus could definitely support a quality music festival.

I know this is the first year for the event. Overall it went smoothly. I thought the timing was good between stages and bands. I think the venue is kind of strange but really aren't too many options in that area with downtown Columbus. The wristband payment was nice and fast. Don't like the surcharges on getting money there and back. Great selection of beers. Food selection could have been better. Saw no benefit really to being VIP other than closer to the bands which is not why most people go to festivals. Clean. Bathroom line wasn't insane. Line up was good. 3 stars.

Between the insanely high-priced drinks and the illegal cigarette smoking, I'll never go again.

This festival was great. Continuous music, organized well, most acts started on time with friendly staff. I enjoyed the variety of acts from classical pop, indie rock to electronica to hip hop how many festivals have all that on the ticket! Even though the VIP ticket was pricey the overall experience mostly made up for the cost.

Took my 16 year old son Logan to see PromoWest Fest Day one 7/15/16. Loved all the bands, but my two favorites were Ryan Adams and The Flaming Lips! The Flaming Lips performance was not just a concert, it was a Religious Experience! I hope next year Meg Myers and local band Angela Perley and the Howlin' Moons will perform at PromoWest Fest year two! mo

First year for this festival. I was there Friday night. The good.... I'm not a Flaming Lips fan so I didn't even stay for that show. X Ambassadors, Fitz and the Tantrums, Noel Gallagher and Ryan Adams were all excellent with Noel G having a standout set. The Venue was nice but long and narrow. There wasn't a huge crowd and that's a good thing because the space really won't support a large crowd. If they want the festival to grow they are going to have to move it. Decent craft beer and food selection The Bad...... The 1.5 hour wait to get my wrist band that made me miss The Wombats and the first half of X Ambassadors. After the struggles that PromoWest had with this at Bunbury in 2015, its pretty amazing that they didn't get this right. Just not enough ticket Windows open to handle the early rush. The Cashless system. In a word....bad. Its a royal pain. The people at the booths were little help and could not help with simple tasks like combining wrist bands on a single account or setting auto top off. The web site was painful. It didn't scale properly on my Android phone and crashed twice when I tried to register my band in order to set up auto top off, causing me to just give up on it. The fees are ridiculous and an insult.

Great lineup (despite a lot of dropouts and no-shows) and sweet set-up. The cashless wristband option made things easy at the moment of purchase, but was a bit annoying when I was like two dollars short and had to go refill when I had, you know, actual money on hand.

Pretty good showing for this being a first time festival. The good: - Solid lineup - Venue/bathrooms stayed clean throughout - Lots of great food and drink choices - Staff and security were easy-going and friendly The bad: - Some sets were 30 minutes long. I understand you need to keep it moving with some of the smaller acts, but that's like 6 songs for some bands, assuming that they never so much as stop to speak to the crowd. - The wristband "top up" system was a great idea with horrible execution. Let's start with the obvious cash grab: $2 "convenience fee" (for something no one wanted in the first place), and any unused funds on the wristband would be refunded LESS a $3.50 fee. Then add in the fact that it was a huge pain to reload your card once in the festival, and the result is my friends and me buying way fewer beers than we probably would have. In addition to this, there were plenty of moments where I would have left a tip for the vendors, but for the fact that I didn't have enough funds on my card to do so. Just link the wristband directly to credit cards (like other festivals have done) to solve pretty much all of these problems.