Firstly, I know we are paying to see bands that we like, but I cannot feel we are getting less value for money this year (if we take it that the music is as good as last year).

Last Year;
Carling Cold Beer Amnesty
JD Saloon

This Year;
?

Don't want to be a downer so close to the festival, but they can't keep taking stuff away and charging more.

Do you have any idea how much it must has cost Melvin Benn to drop Carling as the major sponsor this year?

No I don't. Do you?

the cold beer amnesty is going to be at reading so i guess it'll be at leeds. according to melv anyway.

I dont have a clue, but seeing as it was named "The Carling Weekend" im guessing they dropped quite a lot of dolla on that.

looking at the map it's not there. meh, i don't know what's going on.
i never used it anyway.
cider ftw

the NME/Radio one stage is a lot bigger this year and doesn't leeds have a lot more stuff going on outside the arena than before ?

http://media.livenation.co.uk/fido/publish...emap%2014.8.pdf

I never used either of those things. It'll either mean more much-needed space or other facilities in their place.

Really petty IMO, when you got your tickets, you dodn't go "YES!!!! CAN'T WAIT FOR OVERPRICED BURGERS AND PISS IN A CAN AGAIN!"

What, so he dropped them out of choice?

They are selling pear cider this year. That's a massive plus!
Also a bigger NME tent is much needed. Am a big Manics fan, so the extra capacity could well be useful.

To be honest, the long queues for things such as the JD Saloon and can anyone remember the GHD van and the queue for that?? I'd rather watch the bands than queue for ages for something.

All those bands to choose from, campsite djs till 6 in the morning, and your bothered about is the cold beer amnesty and the jd saloon not being there.............................GET A LIFE !!

Those were just perks, I didn't buy my ticket for them.

Yes I am bothered that there is no cold beer amnesty. It has put an extra £10 on top of everything else for me.I used the JD saloon as an example of something that has been removed from last year and seems to have not been replaced.

I was merely saying that we are getting less value for money, but I'm still going because I don't go just for the beer exchange. I wonder where it is going to stop, now that the organisers know that they can sell 70,000 tickets in a flash.

There was a time when Leeds Festival didn't sell out and because of that the organisers had to make improves and add perks, but now there is such a demand they can remove the costly perks without dangering sales.

I didn't care for either of these last year so definitely won't miss them. A hat remained on my head throughout the weekend and when we wanted cold beers we filled our bucket with water and placed them in there. Worked a treat.

You say less value for money, lets look at this way, if you saw say 20 bands over the weekend and a ticket costs £160 with P&P ect, thats £8 a band, how much more value for money do you want. RATM FOR £8 = YES PLEASE !!!!

I GUESS SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST NEVER HAPPY !!

Am I the only one that never bothers with things like the JD saloon? There is almost always a band worth watching on at any one time during the day, and at night it's more fun to just party in the campsite.

Don't get me wrong, I know where you're coming from and think it's good that there is stuff to do, but I don't think we'll see any kind of downwards slide in things like the Saloon since they are cash cows for the sponsors, not perks for us. I would imagine there's something around to replace it (like the football pitches) and there will be different things next year. Things come and go but it certainly seems to me that the amount of 'extras' has increased on average quite a bit in the 9 years I've been going, even if some years seem quieter than others.

If the beer amnesty does go, then yeah that's a perk it sucks to lose, but again I never bothered with it, and you couldn't really expect FR to keep up something so economically unviable for long.

Fuel costs have gone right up, the JD Saloon was nice but still something you had to pay for, there's no major sponsor, they've added a Rock Band tent and something about Playstation (both are advertising, but then so was the Beer Amnesty and JD Saloon), Carling paid for the amnesty so that's not related to ticket price anyway, and as someone said we're getting campsite entertainment till 6am this year.

It's not all bad

don' we have that ea rock band tent this year thats new?

i think there may be some truth with what you're saying. they were only examples, the price of everything has gone up also, you need to take inflation into account there though.

i have an issue with the cycle of bands that make up the headliners for reading/leeds. don't get me wrong, i'll go watch foo fighters everytime they play, but that doesn't mean i don't want a bit of variety. sometimes i feel leeds goes for the 'easy' option to get to play (ie someone doing a new album/had a number 1 album recently) rather than making that extra effort - like glastonbury does - to put someone who'll really WOW the crowd.

that's not a new criticism, though, it's been happening for years and probably will for a while now.

The easy options? The only one that could fit into that category this year is the Killers... I mean, Metallica are much more suited to Download these days, and RATM... Well, it's RATM!

I'm gutted about the lack of a JD saloon if I'm honest, best and cheapest burgers around. But it aint gonna ruin my festival.

Apparently it was all set to appear, but for some reason they pulled out at the last minute. Someone involved with their marketing posted that in another topic.

I think half of the fun is watching and meeting people at the festival, the other half is the bands! My most memorables moment from previous Leeds festivals have been from daft ediot laying on the floor with dickhead kholed on his forehead, ediot in shopping trolley going down the hill near Picadilly Circus, ediots in wedding dresses, ediots falling over, ediots trying to look cool (usually young uns), etc,etc, etc.

Its rubbish that we don't have the Jack Daniels saloon this year.