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Funk Fest a hit, but Wolf Creek's parking off to bad start (1741 hits)

By Johnny Edwards

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With a little help from Bobby Brown, south Fulton's Wolf Creek Amphitheater finally lived up to its promise this weekend, offering a ray of hope to countywide taxpayers who've poured millions of dollars into the outdoor concert venue.

Brown, with the reunited 1980s R&B boy band New Edition, performed a Friday show that sold more than 5,300 tickets — just short of a sell-out. Saturday’s concert, with Erykah Badu, sold more than 3,000 tickets.

"They need more stuff like this on the Southside," said Jonesboro resident Renard Jones, who paid $55 for a lawn seat. "If the artist is hot, people will drive here, because I saw some Gwinnett tags here."

But Funk Fest -- one of just two events scheduled for all of 2012 -- revealed a serious parking problem at Wolf Creek, one so bad that some concertgoers threatened to never come back. The county acknowledged the shortcoming and began rectifying it Saturday.

It was a critical weekend for Wolf Creek, having its first major, for-profit event with sizable attendance. Since 2008, taxpayers have spent nearly $7 million to build, equip and operate the facility, and promoters considering further bookings watched closely to see how it handled everything from lighting and sound to concessions sales and parking.

More: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/funk-fest-...