79 replies to this topic

[hatethisandillloveyou]

Onsite waiting for the carparks to open in 3 minutes, no queues at all :-D

[Palace gardener]

No queues huh?

We arrived at 1.30pm and there was already a queue of several hundred. We didn't get through the gate until gone 5pm. Over three and a half hours!! I heard others talk of a 5 hour wait. That is just plainly rediculaous and a terrible start to any festival. This was a serious cock up. I can't believe they had only one entrance for a festival of 20k plus. This was such poor organisation. I've been going to festivals for 20 years and have never had to queue up like that for entry. God knows what would have happened had there been a downpour all afternoon!!!??

Apart from that terrible start had a great time, site was beautiful, people friendly, all good.

[WildWayz]

Gotta admit - boutique camping was VERY good - no queues or searches.
Heard of 4hour+ queues, everything searched.

In Boutique camping, not enough toilets and even tho the Andy Loos guy was cleaning pretty much non-stop, the loos were still backed up!

[hatethisandillloveyou]

Just got back, as I said I arrived before gates opening so only had to queue for about 20 minutes,

Was very annoying having every single person searched, but maybe this Is a condition of the license. They seemed to be doing all the Security and seachers at the gates, then seemed pretty lax onsite, low police presence etc,

the searches are my only complaint though,

awsome weeked, nice and chilled out, friendly people good music :-D

[dan_abnormal]

We had at least a 2 hour queue to get in but no searches.

My tent got robbed twice. The first time when we were exploring and our beers and two broken phones were nicked which we weren't that pissed off about but still didn't expect it to happen. The second time was when a couple of guys came over, got chatting to them and when my mate came back to the tent the scarpered and i realised that my wallet had left with them.

Also saw loads of people break in on Saturday night. So much for the Glasto style super fence. It was shit.

Really disappointed by this weekend as i have had some great times at the garden in the past but i don't think i shall be going again.

[fingers_mark]

Superb weather made another great festival.

I thought the site layout last year was poor, but now it was back to how it was initially in the main.

Highlights - RODIGAN, Infadels, Fenech-Soler, Example, The Whip and Mercury Rev for a very hazy ending.

Lowpoints - 4/5 hr queue to get in on Thursday afternoon. It has to be said. If you're going to up the capacity by a third, then make sure you cater to cope with the influx of people by adding a second entry. Or just have spotcheck searches, not everyone.

[fingers_mark]

dan_abnormal, on 26 July 2010 - 04:18 PM, said:

We had at least a 2 hour queue to get in but no searches.

My tent got robbed twice. The first time when we were exploring and our beers and two broken phones were nicked which we weren't that pissed off about but still didn't expect it to happen. The second time was when a couple of guys came over, got chatting to them and when my mate came back to the tent the scarpered and i realised that my wallet had left with them.

Also saw loads of people break in on Saturday night. So much for the Glasto style super fence. It was shit.

Really disappointed by this weekend as i have had some great times at the garden in the past but i don't think i shall be going again.

Where did you see people breaking in? Did/or will you report where? Sorry to hear you had items stolen.

[refriedgenes]

From a first timer. I thought it was a really enjoyable weekend. The people, for the most part, seemed friendly. Bit expensive, 4.00 for a pint of cider, but I guess it's majoritively Londoners so expect London prices.

I didn't experience any tent theft although a girl did start unzipping my tent this morning, saw me, and gave it the old "Sorry friend, wrong tent" She actually had the nerve to call me friend, I thought I'd pulled at first so didn't get cross but on reflection she was on the scavenge. This was about 11.30am and half the tents had already dissappeared.

Queueing for 4 hours to get in was shit, it didn't seem so much the searching that was holding it up (I wasn't searched - did have to walk past a Policedog though), but there were only 6 stewards giving wristbands out. Not nearly enough for that many people. Searching may be a license condition, but the job should have had 5 times that. Think Glasto where you probably have 15 at each gate - that seems to run smoothly.

Roots Union and Peoples String Foundation were brilliant, as was the bass at Chai Wallahs - Think I'd consider it again.

[dan_abnormal]

fingers_mark, on 26 July 2010 - 06:40 PM, said:

Where did you see people breaking in? Did/or will you report where? Sorry to hear you had items stolen.

They were breaking in fairly close to the property lock ups. I haven't let them know yet but i will.

[fingers_mark]

dan_abnormal, on 27 July 2010 - 09:03 AM, said:

They were breaking in fairly close to the property lock ups. I haven't let them know yet but i will.

I know where you mean, I think they had problems near there last year - surprised it's happened there again.

It's now a very popular festival - and by saying it's sold out on the Monday and Tuesday before (I doubt it always has fully, it's just to prevent people looking to buy on the day) - means a lot of people chance there arm by jumping over knowing it's a very relaxed festival.

[forum fanny]

What started out as the worst start to a festival ever on thursday afternoon with our four hour wait to get in, the stupid security (we still got everything in we needed including stove and booze) and just to round things off getting our new bell tent slashed on thursday night. Turned into one of the best festivals ever. A full on artistic crowd made the already beautiful site quite simply amazing. Every bit of music I heard was of the highest quality except the saturday headliner which was quite frankly a piss take! sorry SGP I expect better value for my £120. Highlights though were caravan palace, mercury rev, the jessie rose trip,the whip and the absoulutely wonderful Reverend sound system which even had mr prog rock himself corperal clegg taping his foot! nice one.
I expect to be back next year, but please so many looking for booze while so much tent crime! get your priorities correct! And certainly a few more loos!

[Paadzer]

I loved it. My first time stewarding at a festival and such a lovely atmosphere.  Only worked at South Camping and the south car park both of which were not busy

[Jules007]

I really loved this festival but the queue to get in was really off putting, so glad i didnt have my dog and toddler at this point.  I'm local so picked them up later.
Had the same exprience last month at glasto and it was shit then.

But once inside the fest i didnt experience any trouble, hardly saw any music and had a great time.  This was one of my faves but not too sure about those queues...

[Corporal Clegg]

Got to agree with the comments about getting in on Thursday afternoon just a total shambles.This was not the first Secret Garden so they should have the intelligence and experience to realise that what happened on Thursday afternoon was totally preventable.You can't treat people who've paid £120 like that.Standing in that queue for more than 4 hours I already decided I wasn't coming back so it was to the organisers credit that I changed my mind very quickly once inside.

Onto the good stuff.i don't think I've been to a festival with such a relentless party atmosphere before! First festival i've been to where the music was incidental as so much other stuff going on.Paid £5 for a programme but didn't really need it as spent the whole weekend just wandering around being entertained by random stuff going on.

musical highlights I did manage to see was the majestic Mercury Rev,horace Andy,Steve Mason and The Whip.Also Reverend Sound System were excellent too(Yes thankyou Forum Fanny I do move my feet from time to time!!)

All in all an excellent festival experience just sort out that f**king nonsense on Thursday afternoon.

[Macca3031]

Did anyone have problems going out on Monday? We got to the car park 12ish and the queue looked silly, people had obviously been waiting hours and cars were going out along one dirt track, I estimated it would take us 4 or 5 hours to get out. After the 4 hours on Thursday we were feeling pretty down, problems on the way in you can forgive, the way out as well and you'll remember that more than the festival. Suddenly all the cars started bombing it down towards the fence away from the festival so we quickly follwed to see a section of the car park fence had been removed and led to a path round a field of wheat, we were still worried we'd reach a dead end but we ended up out on the road within 10mins. Hope others used that route and got out in time.

It was similar problems to the way in, not thinking about the bottlenecks, you can't have one exit for a car park with thousands of cars that will all want to leave on the Monday, similarly the queue on the way in was not just caused by the searches (we didn't get searched so brought in all our wine and vodka) but there was just one guy at the entrance lane, scrabbling around in his pocket to get out a wristband. Must have taken him 1 minute to fit them on me and the missus, those seconds wasted add up with a queue of thousands. SGP should hopefully learn lessons from this and look at how some of the larger festivals handle it. Say what you want about Meanfiddler but they are very good at crowd logistics, SGP had no shortage of workers from the look of the licence so having 5 times as many giving out wristbands at the peak times on Thursday would have been easy.

Saying all that I loved the festival, the atmosphere and crowd were amazing. Never seen such effort made into dressing up and having a laugh with passers by. Definitily going next year.

[festigowrong]

In 2009 I arrived at this festival with crew and stayed within the crew camping area. Crew members invariably go free and also do not suffer intrusive searches and therefore can bring in almost unlimited drink. This year (2010) I was subject to the full experience normal punters have to put up with. Why would anyone go as a punter? Waiting to get in and out, Police dogs, aggressive rent-a-thug security, I witnessed one security guy shouting directly into the face of a young girl punter over a small carton of juice which may have had spirits in it but was in my view a gross over-reaction of a man clearly with female issues getting his kicks as a bully. The security was also variable if you are smuggling booze do it on the first night or on the Sunday morning, virtually no security - DO NOT TRY IT ON THE SATURDAY - you will get abuse from the security and made to feel unwelcome, I was successful on Thursday, Friday and Sunday but it is a pain in the arse not to be able to bring in more than 12 cans since already paying a small fortune for a ticket. Despite saying that I found the atmosphere charming and festive in an idyllic setting having plenty to do, see and hear which helped me forgive the aggressive security, chaotic parking and expensive ticket price for what is a small festival site. I think on balance it is a worthwhile festival, but I hope that over the next few years it will not become more stringent, oversubscribed or poorer in quality. I fear that it may have had its day though and I probably will not return to this festival unless they relax their alcohol policy which in my view is overbearing and unnecessary (Someone tell them alcohol is not illegal)

[Ed209]

The sniffer dogs were either fakes or totally ineffective due to poor handling/being over worked. There was certainly no shortage of drugs in there

[WildWayz]

Aye - lots of funky smells and laughing gas caplets all over the floor. Was wondering why people were filling baloons with some wierd gas... until I was told it was either laughing gas of helium!

[Macca3031]

Those dogs definitly couldn't sniff out drugs, they were there to scare people pure and simple.

[fingers_mark]

Macca3031, on 28 July 2010 - 12:12 PM, said:

Did anyone have problems going out on Monday? We got to the car park 12ish and the queue looked silly, people had obviously been waiting hours and cars were going out along one dirt track, I estimated it would take us 4 or 5 hours to get out. After the 4 hours on Thursday we were feeling pretty down, problems on the way in you can forgive, the way out as well and you'll remember that more than the festival. Suddenly all the cars started bombing it down towards the fence away from the festival so we quickly follwed to see a section of the car park fence had been removed and led to a path round a field of wheat, we were still worried we'd reach a dead end but we ended up out on the road within 10mins. Hope others used that route and got out in time.

Yes, we did exactly this