Phish staged their last ever concert in Coventry, Vermont this weekend, and, as predicted, demand to get into the 70,000 capacity events was very high. Coupled with torrential rainfall in the area last week this caused logistical nightmares for event organisers and local police, which lead to thousands of ticket holders being turned away.
With many of the car parks and roads on the site of the mini-festival turned into mud baths by Saturday afternoon, Vermont State Police were forced to close the local Interstate 91 to the ever increasing hoards of traffic to ensure there was no major incident on site. That meant thousands of ticket holders were unable to get to the site.
Adam Lewis, a spokesman for the concert promoter, Great Northeast Productions told reporters: "Because of the heavy rains, parking inside the festival site has basically become impossible, and they're concerned for people's safety". The promoters promised to refund any ticket holders who did not make it to the festival. However many dedicated Phish fans were seen dumping their cars on the freeway and making their way to the gig on foot.
One fan, Erika Sander of Blodgett, Oregon, who had dumped her retned car in order to get on site on foot told reporters: "There is no way I am not going to try to get in".
As previously reported, demand for tickets to the last ever Phish concerts was so high the band decided to broadcast the concert live on XM Satellite Radio and into numerous movie theatres across America.