The Gorge apologizes, offers $50 to fans who missed concert due to traffic jam

Last week, The Gorge Amphitheatre posted online that heavy weekend traffic could mean music fans missing part of the The Lumineers concert.

That’s exactly what happened: Tens of thousands of people sat in line for hours, watching the sunset from their cars.

Now, Live Nation, the company that owns The Gorge Amphitheater, is offering fans $50 at any of their venues.

On Friday evening, the line to The Gorge stretched all the way back onto Interstate 90. That’s over seven miles of cars, bumper to bumper, moving at a crawl.

Some passengers got out of their cars and walked to the amphitheater, leaving their drivers in the desert dust. Others decided to give up on the show and turned around. A few drivers even decided to skip the line by driving in the wrong lane, nearly getting into head-on collisions with the people that had turned around.

It was chaotic. It was miserable. It was not what anybody had paid money and drove many hours to endure.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office says the gridlock was caused by fans showing up not only for the Friday night The Lumineers concert, but also to see Eric Church on Saturday.

“Clearly, trying to move that many vehicles both in and out of the area simultaneously was not a good idea,” Sheriff Joe Kriete wrote in a Facebook post.

The two-lane road into The Gorge isn’t built to handle that many people, Kriete added. The sheriff apologized to residents and concertgoers who had to wait in line, some as long as four hours.

On Monday night, Live Nation sent an email to fans saying the company fell very short on Friday night.

“We sincerely apologize for not delivering the experience you deserve and look forward to welcoming you back for a future show,” the email reads.

The company is offering people $50 to spend at any of their venues, including The Gorge.

Kyle Foreman, a spokesperson for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, said the department has not yet formally spoken with Live Nation about Friday night’s debacle but, “in the future, we will strongly encourage Live Nation to not book so close together two concerts with camping.”