Best Friends Day was last celebrated in 2011 after 10 years as one of the best underground parties in Richmond.
Best Friends Day was last celebrated in 2011 after 10 years as one of the best underground parties in Richmond.
It was once a rallying call for former and current RVA residents, a chance for old heads and new heads to gather during the summer’s hottest days and celebrate with brews, bands, and good times.
Still not sure what Best Friends Day was? Check out this video I (with former fellow producer Caroline Jackson) shot four years ago with WRIR.
You’ll notice the high level of awesome-shit-show the event achieved annually.
But when a local promotion group tried IndigoRVA to coop the name with a new event, Super Happy Mega Best Friends Day, everything pretty much went to shit.
Originally organized by Shelly Briggs and Anna Virginia, BFD had a number of folks involved behind the scenes, with locals Tony Foresta (Municipal Waste, Iron Reagan), Curtis Grimstead, and Ward Tefft (Chop Suey Books) also involved through out the years.
Tefft spoke with RVAMag and said once the core group of OG BFD organizers heard about the poorly-named event, they all touched base with each other and posted on the facebook event page to let them know the idea wasn’t cool.
But before long, Tefft and Foresta “decided to have fun with it.”
“We wanted to make it clear we had nothing to do with it,” said Tefft about the trolling which ensued. “They’re gonna do half-assed job if they can’t even come up with their own title,” he said. “We’re worried about whats gonna happen with this, how could it reflect back on us, or could bring people in thinking we’re still involved.”
Tefft, who said he spoke for all the organizers, said they had worked hard throughout the years and “made a very careful decision to stop it.”
“To see someone pick it up like that without having any background to it, or talking to us, it ruffled some feathers.”
They rustled some jimmies is more like it.
Tefft was impressed with the number of people who got involved in the trolling, and figured at least some of it came from folks who looked back on the event fondly.
“The people commenting have a lot of fond memories of BFD and feel very much personally involved in it,” he said. “That’s where the trolling came through.”
Taft also wanted to stress he supports other events and festivals happening at Hadad’s lake. Parties like GWAR-B-Q follow in BFD’s footsteps in a good way, and organizers have no beef with those continuing the party at the East End’s Redneck Disney land.
“We’re not pissed that someone is doing something,” he said. “It’s just they did it in a very lazy way and they didn’t really think about what they were doing.”
Tefft said there were a number of reasons why the Best Friends Day ended, but the most obvious reason is also the least complicated:
“We were done, yea know?” he said. “It had run its course and we were all fine with that decision.”
According to Tefft, IndigoRVA has apologized for the name, calling it “a misunderstanding.”
In a facebook conversation, IndigoRVA said they had already began working to change the events name but it appears the group is working to erase their web presence as we speak.
