Broccoli City Festival is refunding some attendees’ money after storms required them to cancel some of the performances July 15.

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As storms approached the District on Saturday evening, Broccoli City issued a warning on Twitter to the attendees of its annual festival at the RFK Festival Grounds: “Inclement weather y’all please standby.” Less than 20 minutes later, the festival organizers announced they had called off the remaining performances by headliners Lil Uzi Vert and Jazmine Sullivan, as lightning quickly closed in on the area. “We want to keep you all safe. Severe weather is approaching. Please calmly leave the venue through the nearest exit,” the organizers tweeted from the Broccoli City account.

The following day, Broccoli City told patrons it would be issuing full refunds to anyone who’d purchased a one-day pass for Saturday, and two-day ticketholders would receive a half refund. Two-day, general-admission passes started at $149 for the festival that also hosted acts including Ice Spice, Brent Faiyaz, and Keke Palmer on its lineup.

Given how infrequently festival organizers tend to refund attendees due to weather-related cancellations, this move seemed to assuage some patrons.

Others, however, appear to be unimpressed with the popular festival’s response to the act-of-God situation and are more concerned about how the organizers handled ticketing and overflowing crowds amid muggy conditions. Across social media, disgruntled attendees have described scenes of chaos: overheated guests passing out with few cold water stations or medics in sight, people waiting for more than three hours to reach the will-call desk, and a free-for-all nightmare in which some festival goers simply resorted to pushing their way through the masses.

“The people saying a full refund is crazy weren’t there,” wrote one commenter on Instagram. “It was absolutely mad out there. The worst large outing I’ve ever been to. For it to have been that many people and to have been so unorganized is unethical.”

“Additional cold water stations are needed!” commented another. “Also y’all need to have a team of medics on standby because I counted at least 15 people fainting yesterday due to dehydration. The water y’all had available was hot.”

The festival does provide free water-filling stations, and guests are permitted to bring in empty water bottles and Camelbaks, per its website.

“We sincerely apologize for the issues many of our guests had to endure at will-call on Saturday,” Broccoli City’s head of communications, Jermon Williams, wrote in an email to DCist/WAMU after this story was originally published. “While improvements were successfully implemented on Sunday to correct those mistakes, we acknowledge that it doesn’t excuse what took place. Customer satisfaction is something we always take very seriously and anything less than ensuring a safe environment with seamless entry into our events is unacceptable … We appreciate the continued support over the years and will continue working hard to earn back the trust of those impacted.”

Broccoli City Festival, now in its 10th year, has had its highs and lows. Since 2013, the founders grew the festival from a 5,000-person event that was “butt-naked financially” to a cultural mainstay with over 30,000 music fans attending each year and Live Nation knocking at their door — the mega concert promoter bought an equity stake in the festival last fall.

Locals always get a spotlight at Broccoli City Festival, which this year included acts like Foggieraw, a rapper from Maryland, as well as a number of go-go bands that “battle” each year.

In its current form, the festival spans two days, but the full gamut of Broccoli City events includes workshops, parties, and a 5K run. Broccoli City launched a now-closed bar in Shaw, a drive-in movie series, and a planned (but never realized) Afro-Latin music festival with AdoboDMV. Broccoli City Festival was also postponed for two years in a row during the pandemic.

As for the latest cancellation, one commenter wrote, “I commend you all for issuing full refunds for something out of your control. That’s business integrity on a new level. Kudos to BC.”

Some took note of the frequency at which bad weather seems to impact Broccoli City events. Others felt it more necessary to comment on the organizers’ misspelling of “lightning” in the refund announcement:

This story has been updated with comments from the Broccoli City team.

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