The day was wonderful, the sun in the sky not a cloud around. The traffic was normal for what it was like on a Saturday in Tampa, FL; in other words, busy. However, on this day it would be a little busier than most due to a festival that was planned over a year ago with the Parks & Recreations office. The festival would be taking place at the beautiful Water Works Park they would be calling it The Spring Music Festival 2018 hosted by non-other than yours truly GroovEntertainment LLC.

Like any festival the day was going perfect there were plenty of vendors, food trucks, music, family, and friends. You could see people from all walks of life come together for a weekend of music and fun by the river. There are bike trails, walk ways, and even a water taxi near by for commuters to easily get to and from the water park venue shops, park, and plaza. There were also enough room for the four-legged friends as well.

As the music got started and more and more and more people began to come to enjoy the show, placing their blankets and chairs, we cozied up closer to the front, so we could enjoy the show as it got underway. Many people started singing along with artists that were on stage or as the DJ played some songs in between acts. My family and I enjoyed the songs from the old school as well as the here and now.

Blanket down, chairs set, food gotten, and beverages gotten; let’s keep this music festival rolling. The talent that would be hitting the stage during the festival was Theo Lodge, Sierra Amora, Angel Brown, DJ Tone Kapone, DJ Brian B, Tone Kapone, plus more. As my family and I were enjoying this beautiful festive day considering my mother-in-law was joining us all the way from NY, and she had made her plans around this event she was counting on a great show while here visiting Florida.

Let’s just say my family visited the Primavera Music Festival the week prior, the festival was AWESOME thank you to Safety Harbor by the way! The music was of a different caliber—meaning it was just not hip hop & R&B, it was rock and roll, some R&B, and jazz. There was a predominantly caucasian surrounding that had a slim minority population base present. This is not a bias statement; this is based on factual ocular fact base on who came out to the festival.

There were no disruptions, no interruptions, there was peace, joy, families, food, and friends. This event was located by the harbor; thus, you may walk on the docks in very close proximity to private property and other homes nearby. The festival also had a Ferris wheel that stood so tall that it could had disrupted the neighbors, but there were no complaints—everyone played along, and no calls were made to the parks of recreations office.

I only bring this up to you as a concern citizen of Florida regarding the event that happen in Tampa on that afternoon at the Spring Music Festival. I and many other have felt that an injustice was and has been done to the people of Tampa, FL on the 31^st day of March on Saturday afternoon. At approximate between 5:30 -6pm while the people of Tampa were enjoying the Spring Music Festival, there was a caucasian couple Ms.Vogelsang and Mr. Shkurii tying the knot, however their wedding planner did not check to see if there were going to be other events going on that day in the park when she pick that venue on that day.

So we all know in life there are two side to every stories and I will give you both sides because obvious one of the people did not want to hear the other person’s story on that day; maybe it was due to race, creed, color, or the power trip that they were on—we the people need to speak up!

Let’s hear Tony Mulkey’s side, he is one of the associates that works with the director Paul Dial of Parks and Recreations.  Tony states he was in Columbus Ohio and could not deal with the situation directly, so he dealt with it over his phone he stated “The organizer from the wedding called him around 5:30-6pm to see if he could call the festival organizer and see if they could pause the music for the wedding ceremony. Then he stated that he got a call back from the event coordinator from the music festival side, that stated he has a permit for the festival and he is not going to pause but he will turn it down.”

So, then Tony with all this back and forth finally says you know what “I am going to shut you DOWN” and he does just that, not taking into consideration of the families, vendors, sponsors, talents, music, and for what? A hand full of people that did not even stay on the roof even for 5mins after they announce they had to stop the music. Was this a fair trade off? You decided.

Second side of the story is coming from DJ Prince stating that he was getting calls from someone in parks and recreations to lower the music, so he did so, then even after that he even stopped the music at one point in time. He received another call stating the wedding coordinator was still complaining of the music and that the music needed to be paused. Keep in mind the music had been paused, so we don’t know what they were complaining about at this point. By the time everything was said and done the festival was shut down and we were left holding our tails. DJ Prince felt like he would need to find out who he would need to play politics with now since this seemed to be a political move. If it was then–there is no way, no way at all a music festival should have been shut down due to a wedding that was happening on private property over 100yards plus away, that the organizer only had rented out one speaker which was idiotic on their part, and as soon as the music was shut off everyone in the wedding party have already ventured indoors of the rooftop restaurant.

There was also the opinion of Dejavu an artist they did not get a chance to perform at the music festival “if we have the same equal right in the sense of the permit in what we are doing, we shouldn’t have to turn down anything. If it’s coming from the people up above, the people from the wedding you should know what’s going on in your town the wedding planner, what makes yours event more than ours?”

He states “no one here is angry or aggressive, no shooting, the children are here with their families with the lawn chairs, and food trucks on site smelling good. He goes on to say “you have Black folks, Asian, White, Puerto Rican, all nationalities interacting with each other, people on their bikes stopping and listening to the music.

In Daniel Riley’s opinion he felt that they were belittle by the incident because the wedding party stated, “we do not like the music that was played.”

All in all, this could have been handle more better than it was done to ease the feelings of the citizens of Tampa. In this day and age there should be no favoritism, no back-door dealings, no unfairness due to race, creed, color, power, money status, or socioeconomic status. Fair should be fair, it should remain that way, judgement shouldn’t be made in a blink of an eye, or as quick as a bullet train. Decision that can come back and bite you in the butt should be handle with grace and finesse. Decision need to be handle with God on your mind and with him in your heart.

Every time I think of how God did great things for me and the people of this world I thank him and pray even harder because I know that the world needs more caring, compassionate, God fearing, joyful, peaceful, loving people in this world that can spread the joy by showing others what kindness we have inside of us. We have come so far, yet we have much further to go, lets show one another kindness and remember the next decision that you make could be the one that determines what the rest of your life might look like.

I would like to thank 99 Jams WUJM, CEO Don Scott and our super cool DJ’s Big Mark, Super Dave, R1, Daryl Askey, and Bizzy B, all our acts. Saving the best for last DJ Prince and Dejavu, keep it blessed gentlemen and above all keep Christ in your lives and always be true to your gift and to yourself. I wish to see more good things to come from this incident on that sad day Saturday March 31^st. Let’s learn and move on from it and grow to a bigger and better festival for September; thanks to Tony for answering questions that he might have saw was tough but answered them anyhow.

2018 JITG Music FestivalFibromyalgia Hasn’t & Will Not Beat Me!!!!!

God Bless!!!!!

Keep on Bogging………