Why The Powwow Matters

A few weeks ago, at Telesma's "ReBirth 4.20" show at the Hour Haus celebrating the anniversary of the resurrection of our friend Ian Hesford, I met a fellow who had just arrived from LA for a few months to work on the Netflix-original TV series House Of Cards. (A parenthetical Hooray for Hollywood here for bringing jobs to Baltimore and all.) He was curious about the local music and arts scene, and I told him that without a doubt he had stumbled into the right place: after all, that night he got exposed to Telesma, Deaf Scene, and Fractal Cat. I tried to give him some ideas about other venues, in Station North and throughout the city, that he might want to check out.

And I told him about one thing he had to see, if he wanted to get a sense of Baltimore's world-leading DIY arts scene: the Powwow.

This Powwow is not to be confused with the venerable and traditional Baltimore American Indian Powwow. But it is a "gathering of the tribes" inspired by ancient American Indian practice. In this case the tribes are such local subcultures as hippies, burners, skate punks, hip-hoppers, working class heroes, and so on. For the past quarter-century the Powwow has gathered them all together at Ferry Bar Park in Port Covington on the first Sunday in May (give or take a week) with an event welcoming Baltimore out of winter hibernation, a day of music, sunshine, beer, and fellowship.

Powwow might be the highest expression of Bmore's DIY arts ethic. There are no tickets, no cover charge, no corporate sponsors, no civic grants, just a bunch of volunteers putting on a show. And many of the people who show up aren't just attendees but participants. They show up in regalia and costumes, they flow with hoop and poi, they sketch and paint (canvases or faces), they drum, they find a way to make art. That's why I told our visitor that Powwow was a must-see.

I don't know if he made it down, but if he did he saw something unprecedented: despite having all necessary permits from the city, Powwow was shut down by the cops and the fire marshal's office. The ostensible reason, according to a Facebook post by event organizer Kelly Ann Richmond, was that the park was "over capacity." (Full disclosure: Kelly is a friend of mine.)

It's important to note that this is not what police told attendees. One of Bmore's finest was caught on video not only citing an absurd estimate of the attendance and insulting a Powwow attendee, but stating that there were more people present than the permit allowed. But Kelly's statement, and a review of the permit application paperwork, suggests that permits for park events are just not issued with the sort of maximum attendance that the police claim here.

While the permit office may take both organizer's estimates and past attendance into account when issuing permits, the same category of permit is issued for any park event with attendance over 250 people. (That same type of permit is also needed for any event with amplified sound.) The city's schedule of fees for special events lists two categories for events in so-called "neighborhood parks" (the category in which Ferry Bar Park is placed), the first for under 500 people and the second for 500-2,500 people; the only difference is an additional "impact fee". (Any allegations that there were more that 2,500 people in attendance are simply absurd; at an event that crowded I'd have had no room to swing poi.)

I am not a lawyer, but I do have that strange sickness that occasionally compels me to Read The Law. So took a look at the Baltimore City Code. The only portion I could find relevant to overcrowding at events was this:

§ 107. Maintenance.

107.6 Overcrowding.

Overcrowding or admittance of any person beyond the approved capacity
of a building or a portion thereof shall not be allowed. The Fire Code Official, upon finding any overcrowding conditions or obstructions in aisles, passageways or other means of egress, or upon finding any condition which constitutes a life safety hazard, shall be authorized to cause the event to be stopped until such condition or obstruction is corrected.
(Ord. 07-552.)

There are two important facts to note:

1) This pertains to buildings, not to parks. I can find no legal authority in the code to set an approved capacity for parks.

2) The "Fire Code Official" (i.e., the Fire Marshal) is empowered here only to temporarily stop an event until "such condition or obstruction is corrected". So even if we ignore the first point, this would seem to give the police the ability to shut down the music and stop new people from coming in, but not as legal authority to kick people out of the park.

So what caused the cops and Fire Marshal to go into such a panic? According to Kelly's report, and statements from a few other people I've talked to, it seems the answer is last year's Starscape.

Starscape was an all-night EDM (that's "Electronic Dance Music", for those of us who have trouble keeping up with new musical genres) event that, after 13 uneventful years, experienced disaster last June.

According to the Fire Marshall's report, problems at Starscape included overcrowding due at least in part due to oversale of tickets and failures by the private ambulance company the organizers had contracted for EMS services. Add in a hot night and the occasional drug-using attendee (as will happen at any musical event), and local EMS services were kept running all night.

That was certainly a bad incident. But contrast the private, for-profit, admission-by-ticket-only, all-night nature of Starscape, with the free, open to the public, over-by-11 p.m. nature of Powwow, and it's clear that the only significant feature they have in common is that both include a certain genre of music, EDM.

In Powwow's case, that was mixed in with the techno-tribal world music of Telesma, the psychedelic rock of Fractal Cat, the funk of The Funky Bass and Beat Group Known as "F", the roots reggae of the Unity Reggae Band, the rap of Minlus and McCracken, and so on. While some folks might like less EDM and more of some other genre (I'm more of a rock-and-roller than a raver myself), any attempt to portray Powwow as just an EDM event is strictly counterfactual. But it seems that perhaps in the city's eyes, made paranoid by the problems at Starscape, any event featuring EDM is not only suspect but not entitled to basic due process.

As someone involved in festival planning for over a decade, I understand that any gathering of people brings with it safety concerns. It harshes everyone's buzz when someone gets hurt.

But there was no overcrowding condition at Powwow. Indeed, the very fact that people were able to leave so quickly once the cops started brandishing clubs demonstrates this.