Funk Fest a hit, but Wolf Creek's parking off to bad start (1772 hits)
By Johnny Edwards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With a little help from Bobby Brown, south Fulton's Wolf Creek Amphitheater finally lived up to its promise this weekend, offering a ray of hope to countywide taxpayers who've poured millions of dollars into the outdoor concert venue.
Brown, with the reunited 1980s R&B boy band New Edition, performed a Friday show that sold more than 5,300 tickets — just short of a sell-out. Saturday’s concert, with Erykah Badu, sold more than 3,000 tickets.
"They need more stuff like this on the Southside," said Jonesboro resident Renard Jones, who paid $55 for a lawn seat. "If the artist is hot, people will drive here, because I saw some Gwinnett tags here."
But Funk Fest -- one of just two events scheduled for all of 2012 -- revealed a serious parking problem at Wolf Creek, one so bad that some concertgoers threatened to never come back. The county acknowledged the shortcoming and began rectifying it Saturday.
It was a critical weekend for Wolf Creek, having its first major, for-profit event with sizable attendance. Since 2008, taxpayers have spent nearly $7 million to build, equip and operate the facility, and promoters considering further bookings watched closely to see how it handled everything from lighting and sound to concessions sales and parking.
