@chakaping read this week’s newsletter for less fence sitting!
Investigative journalism/texting my husband who is always at Rampage gives the following tale of why it’s on a Friday…
It used to be on a Saturday, but it shifted to a Friday to allow a back up day for bad weather.
It’s in a remote location, so for a Friday event fans travelling have to plan to travel on a Thursday and leave on a Sunday (to get back to work on Monday. Remember, this is America, holidays are few and far between!). If the weather isn’t up to it on the Friday, the fans are still there on the Saturday. If the weather is good on the Friday, everyone goes and parties and rides bikes on the Saturday, because they’ve planned to be away all weekend anyway.
When it was on a Saturday, folks planned to travel on Friday, and then get home on Sunday. If the weather was crap on the Saturday, a bunch of the crowd would have to leave as planned on the Sunday, leaving the atmosphere rather dead.
One year the weather meant the event was on the Monday. It was very very quiet.
It is kind of interesting that an event is still planned around on the ground visitors rather than a TV audience. Shows that atmosphere (and humans!) do matter, perhaps?