Houston's experience hosting a large music festival

The Essence Music Festival, previously held in New Orleans, was moved to Houston this year. There were some glitches, which points up the challenge of putting on a huge music festival (this one stretched over three days and had 200,000 attendees), particularly with relatively short notice (Houston had just seven months to prepare).

This from the 7/2/2006 Houston Chronicle:

"'It was a difficult city to navigate and that can't be ignored,' said Michelle Ebanks, president of Essence Communications Inc. 'The end result was a general lack of systems to manage the sprawl. Houston underestimated the enormity and significance of this event.'

"Festival organizers said they heard numerous complaints from attendees related to the distance between hotels, shopping, downtown entertainment and Reliant Park, where the Essence Festival was held."

There were also complaints that there was not enough to do once the late night concerts ended.