Sea Hear Now 2023

Lots of People Came to Asbury Park by Bike

The median on 4th Avenue this year. Feels like 2018. 

And some of them had trouble parking on the weekend of September 16-17. My wife and I were last in Asbury Park for the Sea Hear Now music festival in 2018, and I still have fond memories. I particularly remember that the main parking corral for bikes included a lovely lawn occupying most of a city block, across 4th Avenue from the city's newest high-rise. In a word: bucolic, with a shiny new city in the background.

Parking in the main corral, 2023.

Unfortunately, this year, the space allotted to the bike corral, again just north of the high-rise, appears to have been dramatically reduced to make way for a pop-up food court (also a laudable amenity). 

The main corral.

And again unfortunately, it appears that this was a Wild West bike corral, with no supervision and lanes between the racks that proved to be too narrow to accommodate individuals' highly idiosyncratic approaches to parking. Many of the lanes between the racks were blocked, preventing new arrivals from being able to reach open spaces.

On the boardwalk.

But bicyclists are a resourceful lot. Many of them went to the boardwalk and locked up on the railing overlooking the beach. So many of them that late arrivals couldn't find spaces. Again, the bicyclists went hunting, this time further inland, and found spots to lock up all over the place. I wish they hadn't hooked up to trees (it's very bad for the trees), but I'm not going to yell at them. 

Entering the show. In the end, everybody is a pedestrian.

I think it's worth pointing out that people seemed, by and large, to be having a very good time. I know my wife and I did. We didn't have tickets, but we enjoyed listening to the the Beach Boys singing, among other things, "Little Deuce Coupe" as we walked along about two blocks from the stage that was located on the sand. My wife asked me what "Little Deuce Coupe" meant, and I had to confess that, beyond knowing it was a car, I no longer had any idea what the song was about.

8th Avenue at Webb.

It seems that the strategy of encouraging people to come to the festival by means other than cars continues to have success. Apparently many people took the suggestion to drive to train stations in other nearby towns and take the train to Asbury Park. And clearly a lot of people rode bikes.

Deal Lake Drive.

It seems this festival had several improvement opportunities. I've heard, for instance, that there were issues with the sound systems. On the other hand, Hurricane Lee decided not to visit, so we managed to avoid a situation where bike parking, or even sound system issues, definitely would not have made it onto the squawk list.

Overall, I think it was a very nice weekend in Asbury Park. I'll take it as a win.

There was also a watery parking lot where you could watch the show - kind of like being in an old drive-in movie theater, only afloat.

See also Bike Parking 9/29.