DENVER — As the sun set on day one of Denver’s first outdoor music festival in years, neighbors were cautiously optimistic about dealing with the noise and thousands of people on the neighboring golf course.
“This could have been a bloody disaster. Seeing that it’s Friday it still could be,” said Michael Schuberth, who lives right across the street from where the festival is being held.
When the three-day festival was first announced, many who live just south of the Overland Park Golf Course (the site of Grandoozy) immediately fought against the idea. Many signed petitions and spoke out in multiple stories, including a recent Denver7 360.
“Are you going to have people around who are going to be dumping trash on your yard? Are you going to have a problem with people coming around and stealing things and things like that?” Schuberth questioned.
His concern wasn’t the noise, or even traffic since it was blocked off by the festival for non-neighborhood residents. He was worried about what was going to happen once the thousands of people left the concert at once.
Both of those sentiments were shared by multiple neighbors that spoke to Denver7.
“Let’s see what happens," Shuberth said. “We all have to wait until Monday when it’s all over.”
The cautious optimism outside was just a small sliver of the feelings of festival-goers inside the confines of Grandoozy on Friday.
“It’s a doozy of a time,” one Kendrick Lamar fan said.
“I mean it’s the best place to be,” another fan from Nashville added.
One couple even came from Kentucky to Colorado to get married on Thursday and attend the festival on Friday.
“It’s kind of our honeymoon,” they said.
Grandoozy runs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Festival organizers say the music will only run until 10 p.m. on all nights.