If you’ve ever been to a music festival before, you’ll know how unpredictable they can be sometimes. Especially hip-hop festivals. Some festival organizers don’t seem to keep their promised lineups, or they just don’t know how to adapt to changes on the go.
All of this and more led up to the riot which followed the summer 2022 edition of Vancouver’s Breakout Festival.
(Ticketleader / Breakout Festival)
So how do I begin to explain what went wrong this weekend in September 2022? Well, for context, I was attending the 5th edition of the Breakout Festival held on the PNE grounds. The previous four Breakout Festivals were mostly a “success” in my eyes, and I got to see many of the artists I listen to daily.
But just like the previous four festivals, there were some last-minute line-up changes. Headline act Lil Uzi Vert had to be replaced with Trippie Redd. Not a bad replacement, but the excuse of “due to unforeseen circumstances” gets tiring and is overused when they probably weren’t coming in the first place.
The first day out of the two-day weekend festival went according to plan otherwise, but day two was where the problems began.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CqhHa0QDQ1L/
The fans started worrying when the fourth act Babyface Ray did not show up. Usually there would be an announcement of some kind on the festival’s socials, but nothing at all was said. Later that day, Babyface Ray posted on his Instagram story about how festivals try to book artists without getting their official confirmation.
Next was another sudden replacement, with popular artist Polo G getting replaced by a local artist who was not nearly as popular, Boslen. I could tell fans were starting to get upset at these changes. Then the big shocker of the night hit, the festival announced that headline act Lil Baby would not be performing. Immediately there was a tension in the crowd. My friend and I got out of there quickly, and just 15 minutes later a riot began at the festival.
— BREAKOUT FESTIVAL (@BREAKOUTFEST_) September 19, 2022
Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment got damaged and several injuries were reported before the police got to the scene and displaced the crowd from the festival.
The riot might be the end of the Breakout Festival as we know it. I don’t see them returning for a 6th festival as the damages and backlash they received are too much for them to recover from. It’s an unfortunate ending to what was a festival which created so many memories for me, but now hip-hop fans (including myself) will need to look around for another festival to attend.