Phish Fans Thrown A Curveball By Weather And Water Contamination; Watkins Glen Fest Canceled

– curveball

Phish’s Curveball festival scheduled in Watkins Glen, N.Y., this weekend has been canceled because of severe flooding in the Schuyler County area, and potentially contaminated water in the Village of Watkins Glen and the festival site, the band announced Aug. 16.

Fans already onsite are welcome to stay overnight, according to band statement, but the campgrounds will close at noon Friday as the water is “unfit for human consumption.”

“This week’s severe storm created untenable conditions, including the inability to deliver clean drinking water to patrons and vendors as confirmed by test results delivered today,” the New York State Department of Health said in a statement. “Working collaboratively with Watkins Glen International and Phish, the county and state explored all options to allow the event to continue as scheduled.”

In an open letter addressed to “our Phish family,” the band wrote:

The four of us are writing this from directly behind the stage at Watkins Glen. We were about to walk onstage only moments ago for our traditional soundcheck jam for Curveball when we were told the heartbreaking news that due to the unsafe water conditions in the Village of Watkins Glen, our beloved festival is being canceled.

We are still in shock. The entire site is already set up and ready to go after literally months of work by our beloved hardworking crew, many of whom have been here for weeks. Our families are here, our gear is set, our tents are up. We keep waiting for someone to come over and tell us that there is a solution, and that the festival can go on. Unfortunately, it is not possible.

We are so terribly sorry for the inconvenience that this is causing so many of you. We hope from the bottoms of our hearts that at the very least this news will reach you before too much disruption takes place in your personal lives. We know that people traveled far, at great expense. We understand that people are missing work, and changing their schedules around. We wish so much that there was some way that this wasn’t happening.

This summer has been absolutely joyous, with each gig building on the previous one, and we were all buzzing with excitement about Curveball. Please accept our deepest apologies for the disruption that this has caused all of you. We wish there was something else we could say.

James P. Hendershot – Trey Anastasio of Phish
Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, Md.

James P. Hendershot – Phish
Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, Md.

Curveball is the first of Phish’s 11 annual festivals at the site to sport the name, and was sold-out well in advance of its Aug. 17-19 run dates. In addition to the band, Phish Heads anticipated numerous art installations, a farmers market, Beers of the World site, food vendors and Liquid Time, a craft cocktail locale.

While several Twitter users expressed disappointment, others found alternative avenues of entertainment and anticipated creative uses of cheese.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Kidz Bop Live is at Darien Lake this Saturday and we plan to sling heady grilled cheese on lot now that <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/CURVEBALL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#CURVEBALL</a> is cancelled</p>— The Phunion (@thephunion) <a href=”https://twitter.com/thephunion/status/1030217901133914112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 16, 2018</a></blockquote>