The best and worst of Innings Fest 2024

A two-day festival with dozens of acts and tens of thousands of attendees is bound to have some highs and lows, and the 2024 Innings festival was no exception.

We loved how smoothly the sets ran, but could have done without the exorbitant food prices. We said a big yes to keeping others safe, but man, that dust is going to kill us one of these years.

Here’s the best and worst of Innings Fest 2024, along with more pictures from the event.

Best: On-time sets/scheduling

We routinely give props to the staff who handle security and man the food/drink areas. But not nearly enough praise is given to other areas of the fest, and that most certainly includes the promoters themselves. More specifically, this year felt especially tight when it came to sets starting and ending on time, and you could practically set your watch to the whole process for most of the day. Really, just Macklemore went over, and that never stopped Third Eye Blind. The thing about that isn’t that it just keeps fans entertained (and moving and churning as needed), but it also informs how much of the remaining fest runs. If the sets are on time, it feels like everything else runs smoothly, even if that’s only in perception by mitigating any unnecessary downtime. It just makes the whole fest feel all the more joyous and celebratory, and even if there are massive lines or overpriced nachos, you can at least know that every band is getting the most out of their sets. It’s all the more impressive considering some of the caliber of talent (especially on Friday), and how those acts often mean (generally unintended) delays. Innings, we salute your razor-sharp precision and overall sense of timing. Chris Coplan

Worst: Annoying attendees

Delays, logistical snafus and infrequent inefficiency are just par for the course at any fest. But what makes it worse is when attendees not only forget the headaches that come with planning an event for 10,000-plus people but actually think they can do better. From people waiting to get in suddenly providing plans for a multi-line system, to folks at the bar complaining about not enough space, it seems like everyone was an expert this weekend. And, sure, a little venting goes a long way — it’s how we deal with the irksome downsides that come with these large-scale events. But it went beyond that healthy kind of complaining into something that soured the mood and almost ignored the whole “we’re in this together’ mentality of any successful fest. It’s also indicative of how much a huge segment doesn’t really do the whole festival thing regularly, and that means they were less likely to, say, not stop in the middle of a walking path or toss trash in the dumbest spot imaginable. The good vibes extend beyond dancing and communing, and this year it seemed like attendees gave into their more base instincts. CC

Best: The new big screen at the Right Field stage

For those who haven’t been to Innings Festival: The Home Plate stage has an incredibly wide field, meaning more people can watch the band closer up. The Right Field stage crowd space is long and narrow; if you don’t get there early enough, you could find yourself impossibly far back. But new for this year was a freestanding jumbo screen several dozen yards away from the side-stage screens. It gave everyone who got to the Right Field stage on the later side — or who didn’t want to be in the crush of the crowd — a better view of Jimmy Eat World, Phantogram and the other great acts on that ide of the festival. Jennifer Goldberg

Best: The “dueling” days

I’ve spent more than my fair share of column space trying to figure out the overarching identity of Innings Fest. Is there as much overlap between baseball and indie rock as they wagered on this whole time? (The answer seems a solid yes.) But while it befuddles some journalists, that open-ended approach does have its fair share of benefits. As it turns out, that includes doing a kind of loose, mostly unofficial “theme” across both days. While Friday’s festivities were all about legends like 311 and Red Hot Chili Peppers, the bulk of the undercard for Saturday was for up-and-comers like Cannons and The Criticals. Sure, Third Eye Blind also played, but they were easily viewed as an outlier amid a lineup of younger bands being given a chance to grow their base even further. Even Saturday’s headliners, Macklemore and Hozier, are younger than those legends, and demonstrative of a newer class of elite bands headlining fests like this one. It feels like an understated way to make the fest feel even more novel, and in a way that puts the focus on the music (at a time when younger and/or indie artists need more exposure than ever before). Talk about a home run, yeah? CC

Worst: The dust

Tempe Beach Park is the site of some of our favorite annual events, including Four Peaks Oktoberfest and yes, Innings Festival. But when a large number of people convenes at the park, the dry grass and dust team up to make breathing a challenge. You could see the detritus in the air by the time the full crowd convened after nightfall, and we know more than one attendee who had to bust out an inhaler just to keep enjoying the music. JG

Best: Free naloxone

Everyone has their own way of having fun at a music festival, and for some people, that includes drugs. We’re not going to judge, but we were happy to see a tent at Innings Festival offering free naloxone to Innings Festival attendees. Naloxone, a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses. We didn’t hear of anyone needing to use it at the festival, but we know several attendees took the opportunity to grab some to have on hand in the future, the better to keep everyone safe. JG

Worst: Concerning food prices

Not to be a broken record (get it, cause we’re talking about a music fest?), but food prices remain an ongoing issue. When the cheapest average item is a $10 thing of lukewarm noodles, you know you have a problem. And, to an extent, these exorbitant prices have at least some purpose (the cost of doing business like this, and yet another reaction to inflation). But given the state of the economy and the perpetual racking of the consumer’s back over the coals, it just seems like fests can’t adjust to meet consumers where they need. And Innings is run by a national group, who just launched a second edition of the fest for early March, and so it seems like they’re in a unique enough position to maybe address prices. That could be working with vendors to avoid a $17 price tag on mac and cheese, add in more cost-effective options and/or make the culinary experience a bit more worthy of $20 than, say, an underwhelming pizza box. It would go a long way toward making the customer feel good about their purchase, and show a more conscious understanding of the unique pains and opportunities of the current live music economy. Otherwise, there’s only so much we can swallow — like a pound of soggy fries. CC