What The Upheaval Festival In Grand Rapids Looks Like Before It Starts

I popped over to the Upheaval Festival at Belknap Park today while they were setting up for this weekend's show and had a sneak peek of what goes into an event like this.

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Get Tickets and Get Others to Go to Upheaval

It takes a lot of people and money to make a festival like Upheaval happen. Not every market or town gets a music festival of this caliber. As a matter of fact, there are only about two dozen rock festivals that happen each year in America and Upheaval is one of them and it's in your own backyard.

If you are looking for something to do or already have tickets, spread the word. We need this to grow or it will go away like a lot of other festivals. Plus there is nothing like not having to drive a long way to see a year's worth of bands in two days with friends and family.

If you are looking for tickets just click here or you can get them at the gate on both days of the show.

Behind The Scenes at Upheaval

When you go to enter the venue the GRD truck is parked in between the front gate and will call in case you are on the list. Feel free to get some pictures with your friends in front of the truck and tag us on your social posts.

There are a lot of crew members, roadies, and the band's to feed on a show this size. Here is the catering tent that is backstage that is not too far from the headlining bands dressing rooms and tour buses.

Now that the stage is built there is a team of people beginning to rig up the lighting for the Upheaval stage.

This is the private bar that is in the VIP area. They also offer chairs for guests who just want to chill and there will be a bleacher set up in the back of this area before it's completed. This section will go all the way to the front of the stage. This also has private bathrooms right behind the bar and is just a few steps away from where the food trucks will be located.

As you can see the sound system is not even set up yet. Don't worry this crew has a full day ahead of them and by the end of the day, it will be ready to rock.

This is what they call FOH as in front of house. This is where the sound and light techs run the show. As you can see there is more to set up.

There is a trail behind the sign up the hill that leads to the "Lookout Stage" where the other bands will be performing. Unlike a lot of festivals, Upheaval doesn't overlap their bands so you don't have to worry about missing a band moving back and forth between the two stages.

Want to get a t-shirt? There will be lots of swag to be had that will wrap around the back of the main field in front of the hill.

Above is the main gain and this year they doubled the number of entrances so it will be easy to get in and out of the venue.

The picture above is the hill if you don't want to stand and watch the bands on the main stage. When you get to the top that is where the second stage is located.

Behind this baseball field is where the food court will be filled with food trucks for the weekend. It is right at the back of the main field in front of the main stage. Way in the back you can see where the bathrooms are.

There are tons of bathrooms. You can't even see them all in this picture so bathroom lines shouldn't be an issue.

Tomorrow and Saturday this stage will be covered with gear and thousands of people will be in front of it. The weather looks like it's gonna be good too but Saturday will be extra hot so drink some water in between some of those adult beverages.