SAN ANTONIO — Bartenders are used to hearing the good and the bad. On Sunday, they heard the ugly.
Jennifer Hogg says she overheard several negative comments while bartending San Antonio's Barbacoa and Big Red Festival.
"'I can't believe you don't have water,'" she said was among them. "'It's hot out here. How can you be so unprepared?'"
The complaints she heard in-person quickly spread to social media. Thousands of people lamented the heat, lack of shade and little water while waiting as long as two hours to get inside the festival.
Once they got through the gates, some attendees said finding water was near-impossible. Hogg said that, at times, their booth didn't have any to give out.
"At certain times we had to wait a good while for water to get to us; maybe 45 minutes to an hour," she said. "Then it'd be gone in 10 to 15 minutes. It was crazy at how fast it went."
At least one person sustained heat-related injuries.
Festival organizers admitted they were unprepared. While it was the ninth Barbacoa and Big Red festival, they've never had attendance like this.
"We had at least 30 thousand," said DJ TONYC, who created the festival. "When you have twice the amount of people that you were expecting, I don't think anyone could be prepared for that. We had more people than you could fit in the AT&T Center."
High volume led to congestion at the entrances. While folks know it took a long time to get in, organizers said the public doesn't appreciate the reason why it took so long.
"We collected over 600 knives, tasers, and other things," DJ TONYC said. "If we didn't do that, it would be inside the festival. All it takes is one tragedy to make things go bad."
There were no safety incidents reported at the event, which has the team calling the festival a success.
"I'll take heat for it," DJ TONYC said. "If I make some tweaks, some improvements, it's gonna be even better next year."