QUINCY, Wash. — After two people were killed and three others injured in a shooting near an electronic dance music festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre Saturday night, festivalgoers are calling for change.
"It was really scary," said Jessi Radley, a festivalgoer.
Authorities said the suspect fired “randomly” into a crowd at the overflow campsite, said Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
"That's not our community," Radley said. "That's not part of who our community is."
The music festival, Beyond Wonderland, is hosted annually at The Gorge Amphitheatre and is produced by Insomniac Events, but even if an event is held again next year, even the most diehard of EDM fans told KING 5 they're not sure that they want to go back.
"It's gonna depend a lot on what we see come from the company that hosted this," said Kristi Hale, who attended the festival with her husband and teenage children. "It was really uncomfortable, and it went for too long. I mean, this morning, we woke up to-- they didn't even publish on their public page, still didn't say anybody was shot."
The group canceled the last day of the festival after the deadly mass shooting at the campground, which happened about a 10-minute walk from the concert venue.
Shaken-up festivalgoers told KING 5 that mass confusion ensued and led to a sleepless night for many on the campgrounds. Some, like Hale, even heard the initial gunfire, but at first, she thought they were fireworks.
"And I went, 'oh, I missed fireworks,'" Hale said. "(But) it's not dark yet. Like why are they doing fireworks? We're not ready. And so, and then, like maybe 20 minutes later, I heard it again."
Hale said music fans went running and screaming, afraid for their lives. She and Radley said they got no specifics from the festival or venue on what exactly was happening.
"We were being told to run," Hale said.
For much of the evening, campers took witness to the large police and medical response but still did not have confirmed answers as to what was going on, according to Radley who was on the campgrounds at the time.
She said she saw a SWAT member, "running down right behind where our tents were, looking for suspects in like the brush."
Eventually, later that evening, warnings were posted online by Grant County Sheriff's Office, reading in part, "Active shooter at Gorge Amphitheater. If at the Gorge, seek cover. Run, [hide] or fight suspect."
People on the festival grounds were told to stay, according to Hale.
"We've been told, 'There's a shooter, it's isolated,'" Hale said. "It's not right here. It's best to get into the festival, that's where we want people."
People were told to stay in the campgrounds during the emergency.
"Nobody could get in or out," Radley said. "Like the festival’s still going on. Like it ended at 2 a.m.”
The only information attendees told KING 5 they heard from event planners was this on the festival's Twitter page, which referred to it as an "incident," a "situation, and a "tragic event." The tweet noticeably omitted the words "shooting" or "shots fired."
Meanwhile, Radley, who was a VIP ticketholder, has a lot on the line. We caught up with her when she was heading home to Oregon.
"What are you gonna do when you see your son?" we asked her.
"Oh I'm gonna hug him," Radley said, emotional. "I'm gonna him, because, sorry, it's—I never wanna go on a trip not knowing if I'm gonna come home and miss out on his life."
She said she spent more than $1,500 on the entire experience, including travel, tickets and camping, but hopes the company follows up with a refund for the time lost.
When it comes to security, Radley said they did have security personnel and drug-sniffing dogs present, but said her row of cars was waved through without a search -- which she finds concerning.
The sheriff’s office said they will release the identities of the victims in "coming days."
Extended interview with Gorge concert attendee