photo credit: Michelle Marques
Fans take video of Benson Boone as he performs 'Beautiful Things' at BottleRock Napa Valley.

The stages have gone dark on BottleRock Napa Valley for this year. KRCB News has highlights from the festival.

“It’s my first time at BottleRock.”

That’s a tween wearing a button on her dress saying Eden’s First BottleRock. I was standing in line with Eden and her dad Brandon as we waited for our food in the Culinary Garden on Day 2 of BottleRock.

“Well we surprised her, she didn’t know she was going,” said Brandon. “We decided a couple months ago and we bought the tickets and told her this morning that we were going.”

The family, including her mom and little bother, say they woke up at 7am in Sacramento and drove to Napa for the event. Eden was there to see one artist.

“I’m excited to see Benson Boone,” said Eden.

“What about you?” I asked her dad.

“Same, Benson Boone, yeah,” Brandon answered.

Boone drew a big crowd on Saturday, May 24th, appearing both on the Culinary Stage and with the lead in set prior to headliner Justin Timberlake. A sea of fans pulled out their cell phones to capture Boone’s signature backflips, as security staff kept the crowd under control.

“Thank you!” said Boone to the audience as they cheered and clapped.

“Keep walking, keep walking!” said a security staffer to the people pausing in the walkway to peer at Boone.

It takes a small army of people to put this event on each year, including transportation to and from the event.

Brightly decorated pedicabs zip up and down Soscol Avenue, with drivers competing to ferry tired festival goers to the venue, for a fee. On Day 3, exhausted after dancing, I hopped a ride with Logan, a pedicab driver who usually pedals people around San Francisco.

“Well, I’ll tell you like the legal license riding number was maybe in the, let’s see – I would estimate 15 of us? Yeah, 15, but I would say total, I’ve probably seen 35,” Logan said after I asked how many pedicabs were at the event.

Last year, there were an estimated 120,000 attendees at BottleRock.

The team producing the event say they are not done yet.

This coming weekend, the security staff, catering teams, stagehands, cleanup crews and others return for the second annual Latin music festival La Onda. That is happening over 2 days at the Napa Valley Expo.