TLDR: Good food & it's nice to see something celebrating AAPI in the area, but the organization was incompetent, it was unsafe and a tragedy waiting to happen, and to top it off they treated their volunteers poorly.
This reddit thread sums up NoKings Collective's treatment of their volunteers, which is pretty gross:
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/qodpo2/dc_redeye_festival_tonight_great_food_terrible/
The organizers ended up providing a non-apology which didn't go over very well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/qoqxp6/no_kings_collective_apologizes_for_redye_night/
And unfortunately instead of taking responsibility for the lack of planning and safety, the organizers are now saying that people who were unhappy & concerned with the hours-long lines, lack of food and dangerous overcrowding are "racist". Disappointing to see them do that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/qoqxp6/comment/hjpc78h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
--
Pros: the food (or the one vendor I was able to get food from after 2.5 hours of collective waiting in line) was good - the one star is purely for the food and the vendors who were put into a no-win situation.
Cons: everything else.
This was incredibly poorly organized and operated - even giving them the benefit that it was the first year. It lacked the most basic concepts of crowd management.
Lines were absurdly long with no crowd control, obviously no thought was given to the logistics of actually getting that many people into an event and serving them food from many different booths in that enclosed space. Booths were way too close together - and the lines from the booths then stretched across the width of the street, making it nearly impossible to walk through the site. Every 5 feet was another wall of people waiting in line, and very hard to figure out what line was for what.
Apparently tickets were required but people without tickets (me included) were just wandering in. Ran into ticket holders outside of the site who said they either waited so long to get in they just gave up, or by the time they got in, they waited in line at a stand for 30 minutes only to be told there was nothing left.
Nowhere near enough staff and the unfortunate people who were volunteering weren't trained, had no idea what they were doing, and weren't given breaks - the whole thing was woefully understaffed. I think that was the most disturbing part of the event - talking to a few volunteers who felt they had been duped: 6 hour shift, no break, no food (at a FOOD FESTIVAL) or water. And the organizers had the audacity to ask them to then stay another shift because other volunteers were abandoning their posts.
The stadium lighting was blinding leading to people continually tripping over the traffic humps in middle of Pennsylvania - yes there were unmarked traffic curbs all over the place just waiting for people to trip on them. Add to that shoulder-to-shoulder overcrowding and people having to push their way through lines of people to get anywhere = injuries waiting to happen.
If there had been any sort of emergency, there was no way for first responders to get through the crowd. God forbid if shots had been fired (not unreasonable considering this is DC), there would have been a stampede and people would have been trampled.
The event organizers - NoKings Collective - are either not capable, or chose to do the least amount possible to make the most money possible. I'm not sure which it is - regardless the city should force them to hire a professional production company that can handle logistics if they want to do this event again.
I'm leaving a detailed review as events like this also do damage to other community events in the city - it makes people hesitant to attend events put on by competent organizers.
Edit: these angry threads on Reddit pretty much sum it up:
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/qocudk/red_eye_night_market/
https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/qodpo2/dc_redeye_festival_tonight_great_food_terribl read more