'Terrible Sound, Insane Crowds' Reported At Sea.Hear.Now Festival

ASBURY PARK, NJ — Concert attendees at the Sea.Hear.Now music festival this past weekend in Asbury Park reported overcrowding and bad sound.

Foo Fighters, The Killers, Weezer, Sheryl Crow and the Beach Boys performed this year. Sea.Hear.Now started in 2018 as a music/surf festival on the Asbury Park oceanfront.

Fans said that lines to get into music venues stretched for half a mile down the beach Saturday and Sunday; they also reported "dangerous" bottlenecking at exits and that it took 20 minutes to walk 100 feet on the Asbury Park boardwalk, NJ.com reported.

Weezer played Sunday night on the main stage, the Surf Stage, and hundreds of fans said it was impossible to hear them. In the middle of the show, people were commenting on Sea.Hear.Now's Instagram account, begging them to fix the sound system.

"Surf Stage. Beach boys were imperceptible and Weezer too. Sound was off. Too crowded and Couldn’t move #dangerous," wrote one user.

"How can you charge as much as you are charging for tickets and have such an awful sound system at the main stage?" wrote another.

A general admission ticket for both days of the two-day festival was $230-$400.

"Every paying customer should be able to see the stage and hear the music (even if the view is far away). The fact that you only allow VIPs to do both is a disgrace. Shame on you. Everyone at this concert paid a lot of money."

"Went on Sunday. Crowds were insane. Impossible to see the main stage and sound was terrible. It was so bad we wound up leaving early. We paid so much money but left before the Foo Fighters came on because of how badly it was organized. Hopefully the organizers see the feedback and take some action. I won’t come back," wrote another user on the Sea.Hear.Now's Subreddit thread.

Fans were repeatedly chanting “Turn it up!" during a performance of “Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Weezer, but the band and lead singer Rivers Cuomo appeared unaware nobody could hear him, the Asbury Park Press reported.

The company that runs Sea.Hear.Now is C3 Presents, the same concert/festival company that operates Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

A C3 spokesperson told NJ.com the festival was sold out this year, with 35,000 attendees each day, and those numbers were on par with prior Sea.Hear.Now festivals in Asbury in the past five years.

This time last year: Green Day Invites Middletown Teen On Stage At Sea.Hear.Now Festival (Sept. 23, 2022)