LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louder Than Life music festival, held this year at the Highland Festival Grounds at The Kentucky Exposition Center, lived up to its name Thursday night, the first of four for what's billed as America's largest rock festival.
On a night headlined by nü-metal icons Korn, the hotline set up to field questions and complaints from those living near the festival grounds received 49 phone calls.
“Most of them are were saying, ‘I’m hearing the bass really loud, hearing the noise, walls in the house are shaking, windows are rattling, that bass is just constantly thumping,' that sort of thing,” said community hotline manager Mitchell Burmeister.
Most of the calls, he said, came from the area east of the festival grounds. “Camp Taylor, Audubon Park, Poplar Level neighborhood, Belknap neighborhood in the Highlands, and Lynnview, which is just a little bit south of here,” he said.
Each day, information about where the complaints are coming from is passed along to event producers, who may make adjustments to the direction speakers are pointing, he said. But other factors can’t so easily be controlled.
“Each day varies a little bit based on the wind patterns,” Burmeister said.
The wind patterns Thursday seemed to be blowing east. By Friday afternoon, District 8 Metro Councilwoman Cassie Chambers Armstrong, whose district includes much of the Highlands, had received more than two dozen calls about the festival. District 10, represented by Metro Councilman Pat Mulvihill, is between District 8 and the festival grounds. A phone call to his officer was not immediately returned.
Meanwhile, Metro Councilwoman Nicole George’s District 21, which is home to the festival grounds, was relatively quiet. “I’m not having my phone ring off the hook,” legislative aide Rachel Roarx said Friday.
This year marks the second time Louder Than Life has been held at the fairgrounds and the first time since 2019. Before that year, Danny Wimmer Presents put it on at Champions Park on River Road. The 2020 festival was canceled due to the pandemic.
After the 2019 festival, neighbors brought their concerns to public meetings that included several Metro Council offices and the production company. Roarx said Danny Wimmer Presents proposed moving stages to address the complaints, but those proposals were denied by the Federal Aviation Authority. Muhammad Ali International Airport is just south of the festival site.
“When they didn't get the approval for any differing stage placement, Danny Wimmer Presents looked into some new sound mitigation technology that they are implementing this year,” Roarx said.
The Louder Than Life community hotline is available for those with questions, concerns and feedback at 502-586-0120.