Over 376 People Arrested at Ohio’s Jamboree in the Hills Country Music Festival
We’ve seen some pretty dramatic arrest totals and other alarming stats at country music concerts and festivals over the last few years, but the arrest totals from the Jamboree in the Hills Country Music Festival in Belmont County, Ohio over the weekend have to set a new record. And once again alcohol was a factor in many of the incidents.
The 4-day event from July 16th to 19th was worked by two separate law enforcement organizations. The Belmont County Sheriff’s Department handled security inside the festival, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol everything surrounding the fest.
“Troopers made over 300 arrests, including 20 OBI arrests (drunk driving),” said Lt. James Faunda of the Highway Patrol. “We investigated 23 crashes, and we had a total of over 600 traffic stops.”
Within the festival grounds, the Sheriff’s Department arrested 76 individuals, including 63 of them for underage drinking. One arrest came when four individuals riding in the bed of a pickup truck were ejected from the back when the tailgate came down as the driver peeled out of a camping spot. The four passengers were all transported to the hospital, and the driver was charged with drunk driving and improper start.
There were also 2 arrests for resisting arrest, three for persistent disorderly, two for drug abuse, one of cocaine possession, three for falsification, one for having a fake ID, and one charge of obstruction of justice.
Headliners of the Jamboree in the Hills over the four days included Toby Keith, Dierks Bentley, Florida Georgia Line, Justin Moore, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Jamboree has been occurring for over 36 years in eastern Ohio, and says they welcome over 100,000 people to the the festival annually. The event is produced by LiveNation.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:00 am
Just warning you right now folks, there’s going to be numerous posts either today in the coming days involving police stuff and other similar activity. This is not a new focus for Saving Country Music, it’s simply the way the news cycle is setting itself up.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:47 am
Gotcha. I’ll let my foot up off your neck about it.
In truth, it is good reporting. I am curious to know if the apparent uptick in bad behavior reports is due to an actual increase in bad behavior, or is a result of increased security/enforcement.
I don’t see the issue myself, given the few shows I attend. Not a lot of drunk-ass bros at Whispering Beard, I expect. Just a lot of beardos.
http://www.whisperingbeard.com/festival/
July 21, 2015 @ 8:52 am
Money, money, money!!!
Local governments love them some sweet, sweet fine money.
I’m in no way excusing poor or abusive behavior but this angle can’t be overlooked.
July 21, 2015 @ 9:47 am
Hey, a fellow Beardo! Pretty sure Friendship doesn’t even have a police force to send to WB if they wanted to…
July 21, 2015 @ 8:51 am
In semi-related news (arrest related), I imagine you’ve seen the very unfortunate news about Stoney LaRue coming out today.
July 21, 2015 @ 6:45 pm
Thanks for the warning, Trigg, but I still don’t understand why you report on this stuff.
By the way, I’m still not getting email notifications.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:26 am
once agin a buncha yankees arested at acountry music concert ina northern city Im gettin tired of hereing about a bunch of yankees that dont know how to behave at a country music concert. Ive had it.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:36 am
What the article does not say is that arrest total is a reduction from a normal weekend in Belmont County.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:37 am
I’ve attended JITH for the last 15 years and was there again this year.
A coup!e points to give more context to these numbers: (1) The festival itself is four days but the campground opens three days before that. So I’m betting these statistics are for a seven-day span. Plus some people arrive to pre-camp even earlier. Most of my friends and I were there for 9 or 10 days. (2) JITH is huge! Live Nation has always been pretty vague about specific attendance figures, only citing the “over 100,000 people annually” figure. (3) JITH allows concert-goers to bring in their own beer, in virtually unlimited amounts. The only limitation is the maximum cooler size and it’s fairly large. (4) Very few of the arrests are for violent crime. The majority are for underage drinking. (FWIW, I think JITH should be an 18+ or even 21+ event.) Fights or assaults are extremely rare. I feel completely safe walking around the venue or campground alone, even late at night.
I’m not associated with LN or JITH management in any way, just a longtime fan of the event and I want others to have a clear picture of what it’s all about!
July 21, 2015 @ 12:18 pm
18 is still not the legal drinking age…I would bet that the majority of underage drinking citations were between the ages of 18-20.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:38 am
I live ten minutes from the site of Jamboree in the Hills (or Jambo, as it is affectionately called around here), and could see the fireworks from my back porch, so I’ve been waiting for Trigger’s report.
That being said, this sounds like it was par for the course for Jambo. The culture of Jambo is one that prides itself on being one of the largest drunkfests in the Midwest. Last week, my Facebook feed was filled with pictures of videos of people drunk off their @$$es being general idiots. Even people who don’t listen to country music (well, the farce that is country radio) attend for the drunkfest. Even some of the performers get it on it. I don’t wish to name names, but watching on tv or listening to it on the radio, there have been a few singers who sound like they had a few too many backstage (or they just sound really crappy live, which is also a pretty good possibility).
I won’t even get into the lineup, but let’s just say I’m ready to go see Aaron Watson when he comes to Columbus in November.
Thanks for providing the numbers, Trigger, and thanks for all you do for the music I love.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:46 am
I live pretty close to this event, as well. Years ago, I recall numerous acquaintances, who were not country music fans in the least (they probably knew a couple Garth Brooks songs and Achy Breaky Heart, but they listened almost exclusively to rap) who would attend this event simply to camp out, get wasted, and hopefully hook up with some naive, drunk chicks…
July 21, 2015 @ 8:54 am
I’ll reiterate what those above has said: Jamboree In The Hills has always been like this. Even before the bro country stuff came around this festival has been nothing but a giant campground for people to get drunk in. Back in the day it used to be a genuinely nice festival to listen to actual country music, according to my older relatives. But now it’s just a place for all of my high school classmates to make asses of themselves. The pictures they willingly post on Facebook are entertaining though.
July 21, 2015 @ 9:07 am
This is why I don’t go to events like this, although, with the exception of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the artists would have made this a non-issue even if the event was in my county.
I don’t know whether the high arrest rate was due to a whole lot of drunk and disorderly conduct or from the local law enforcement agencies treating the campground and attendees as if it was an internment camp.
July 21, 2015 @ 9:15 am
As long as there are folks getting arrested for listening to Florida-Georgia-Line I can rejoice… hahaha.
but seriously, this is disgraceful, disgusting and despicable. Bet this won’t happen on the 2nd leg of the ‘Living the Dream’ tour.
July 22, 2015 @ 11:02 am
Probably won’t happen on Isbell’s upcoming tour either. There’d be a better chance of an AA meeting happening afterwards. Which is why I love his shows, such a respectful crowd (aside from the occasional drunk who only knows him from his DbT days).
July 21, 2015 @ 9:41 am
I agree with all the comments; this isn’t really newsworthy. I live semi-close (Pittsburgh) and this has been the norm for years…. Years. It’s a very long camping event with few restrictions. Most of this stuff wouldn’t have been deemed arrestable 10 years ago, but we live in different times now.
July 21, 2015 @ 9:59 am
The local reporters deemed it newsworthy, and that is usually my litmus test to whether it is newsworthy here. I also think it is newsworthy simply from the number of arrests. And yes, I know when you look deeper into the numbers you get a different picture, but nonetheless, they’re pretty shocking.
Also I know some folks (not necessarily you hoptowntiger) have been complaining about my coverage of these types of stories. Trust me when I say they don’t result in any significant traffic at this point, so I’m not “click baiting.” It’s part of a larger narrative about the behavior of country fans. It’s good info to know this is a regular occurrence at this fest, but this is the first time I have heard about it, and probably the first time it has been reported in country media.
July 21, 2015 @ 7:00 pm
I would never accuse you of “click baiting.” Your my favorite country music journalist. With that said, these are my least favorite articles/reports that you publish.
My mother is always claiming the world is going to hell. I just tell her everything is the same as it’s always been, we just hear about it faster and more often cause of the Internet and blogs and Facebook and 24-hour news channels.
So, these articles get the same reaction out of me.
July 21, 2015 @ 10:03 am
I think its a little bit of both. The overall level of civility in society has declined significantly. On the other hand, lots of cops are now out looking for a fight and a chance to use their tasers, as well as being pressured to collect as much money as possible. I drive a lot for work, and I get a lot of speeding tickets (just the cost of doing business) and I noticed that state cops rarely give points for speeding anymore, they just write you a fine. The idea is, we don’t want you to lose your license because of points. You can keep on speeding all you want, just send us a check every once in a while….
As far as the drinking goes, I’ve got some news for the young rowdies out there: Your grandparents drank a lot more than you do, and they were better at holding their liquor. They were also tougher than you, had a harder life than you and would have kicked your ass at the drop of a hat.
July 21, 2015 @ 7:06 pm
I’m 38 and never got a DUI. The closest I came to getting one was when I was 22. I rolled through a stop sign after drinking pitchers of beer all night. The cop pulled me over and I was honest and told him I was drinking pitchers all night, so I couldn’t tell him exactly how much I had to drink. He ran my info, then followed me home – the longest 3 miles of my life. That would never happen today! The whole police mentality has changed over the last 15 years.
July 21, 2015 @ 7:15 pm
Yep. They went from being peace officers to “law enforcement” officers.
July 21, 2015 @ 7:26 pm
More like money generating vehicles.
July 21, 2015 @ 10:26 am
Hoo boy! =/
All I can say is, where before I lamented missing out on countless festivals due to being perpetually broke………….I actually feel relieved now I can’t make it to many of these festivals so that I don’t have to put up with this sort of behavior (yes, I know most festival-goers still aren’t like this, but they’re near impossible to ignore these days! =/ )
Me, I just head to free concerts at the farmer’s markets and Sauvie Island’s Kruger Farm to get my fix of local roots music in the meanwhile.
July 21, 2015 @ 11:17 am
Maybe they were upset about that atrocious JITH logo.
July 21, 2015 @ 2:11 pm
I’m a longtime JITH fan and camper, 1980 then 1997-2013. Sixty three arrests for underage drinking sounds about right. These kids get different wrist bands but it doesn’t stop them. Undercover cops (lots of them) all look under 21. They’re good at what they do. The remaining 13 arrests inside the venue seems about right. What surprises me were the traffic arrests outside. I don’t ever remember like this. The Belmont County and local lawyers will make a ton of money in the next few weeks.
JITH is not just a four day music festival. They open the campgrounds on the Monday before. Many people “precamp” days (a week ahead is not unheard of) before that to get a camping spot close to the stage. My own experience camping there has been great. A few A-holes occasionally; but mostly fun, civil and music loving bunch of people. After missing these last 2 years, we’re planning on going back next year.
July 21, 2015 @ 8:24 pm
Yes, the 300 OHP arrests have me curious. The source said that 20 were for DUI. What about the other 93%? What kind of crimes were they for and where did they happen???
July 21, 2015 @ 3:29 pm
I’m flabbergasted, why in holy hell can’t people act decent! After hundreds if not thousands of country music shows over 30 plus years I have never encountered more than the isolated fight. All of these were in Texas, Oklahoma or Louisiana. I’m beginning to wonder what role geographical location plays in the kind of fan base these shows draw that cause all the BS?
July 21, 2015 @ 4:19 pm
I’ve been to Jambo a few times… the first time I went, it was a drunkfest, don’t get me wrong, but it was predominantly older people there to have a good time and unwind. In recent years, it has progressively gone from the “let’s have some beers and hear some country music and party” crowd to the “let’s get shitfaced and be assholes and get laid and oh is there music playing?” crowd. I didn’t go this year, as a place where FlaGaLine iso headlining doesn’t sound like fun to me. It’s too bad. Jambo used to be great because of the variety. New artists got opening slots and got tons of exposure. Lots of local artists. And Sunday was always reserved for legends. Loretta Lynn, John Anderson, and Merle Haggard would often HEADLINE Sunday, which is pretty cool even if most of the crowd was thinned out. Now, it’s 90s guys on Sundays. Don’t get me wrong, Neal McCoy and Tracy Lawrence is not bad, but it still isn’t the same.
Anyways, long story short, Jambo IS a drunkfest, but it went from respectful (as a drunkfest can be) to obnoxious, and the music is getting worse. Sounds like country music in a nutshell.
July 21, 2015 @ 4:21 pm
Also, I don’t know the year, but my uncle went once in the 80s and tells the story of how Conway and George Jones were the headliners and George no-showed and the whole place was in a riot.
July 21, 2015 @ 6:28 pm
Had to work the VIP tent years ago and went out into that crowd sober! Don’t know what was violated more my eyes or ears. Lived in Nashville for years and never saw one red neck. Then, just a few miles from wheeling, there they were! There truly aren’t words for this festival of drinks. But if you wait all year for jambo, you might be a red neck giving true rednecks who work hard a bad name! 8 years later and still can’t explain what you see there!! Sign is already up in wheeling for next year!
July 21, 2015 @ 8:04 pm
I’m still pondering these numbers. The breakdown of the 76 arrests inside the festival grounds (I assume that refers to the concert venue and the campgrounds) sounds realistic. They are very tough on underage drinkers. The other 13 arrests, except for the idiot who dumped all of his friends out of the bed of a truck, were drug-related and other non non-violent crimes.
But I’d love to have more data about the 300 arrests by OHP. They said 20 were for drunk driving; what about the other 280?
I react strongly to articles like this one because I know many, many country fans who aren’t causing trouble and breaking laws. Most of my group of friends who attend Jambo together are educated professionals with jobs, families, and adult responsibilities. One week a year we get together to drink a little (OK, a lot) and forget about all the crap we deal with the other 51 weeks. Some of us dress up in crazy outfits because we wear suits and ties or heels to work every day.
I get pretty angry when people like Heather make blanket statements about people like me!!