The customer services phone boxes in the Dance Village

[Guest]

What were they supposed to do? I'd see people laughing and talking on them but when I went over several times and rang the numbers on the poster it just dailed out and nothing happened!

[FuzzyDunlop]

It rang when i went past. As I went someone ran in front of me and started talking on it. I couldnt be arsed waiting for another go

[progue]

I think it relies on a random at another set of phones picking up and then having a chat to you if they are owt tike the ones at other festivals.

[FirsG]

Someone was on the other line but didn't sound like they were at the festival to me, it was very odd.

[Fladog]

I had a 20 minute conversation with some random girl about her love of dark chocolate...............

[Pinhead]

I saw these and my guess was that they were designed to ring simultaneously every now and then and connect both boxes together (thus two punters together).

[matt1991]

I wondered what all that was about, I wanted to give them a go but there was always someone using them, then on Sunday I saw they'd all been ripped out, that's not very nice is it!

[kerplunk]

I saw these and my guess was that they were designed to ring simultaneously every now and then and connect both boxes together (thus two punters together).

I install telephone systems for a living and that would be quite difficult to do - if I did it I would make them auto-call another phone on lifting the handset.

They've been doing it at Shambala for a few years - last year I found one in a portaloo and took a call as I took a...well y'know.

[kerplunk]

I was there ringing the 4 digit numbers that were pinned up inside - assumed I'd either get through to an automated voice that was funny or speak to someone (not a festival goer) but just rang out. So if other people were talking to other festival goers they would only be across the way in another box? Weird...

Yes they would just be extensions hooked up to a business telephone system that you can make 'internal' calls on. It could be done on a large scale with dozens of extensions dotted about but the big problem would be running the cables.

[Pinhead]

I install telephone systems for a living and that would be quite difficult to do - if I did it I would make them auto-call another phone on lifting the handset.

They've been doing it at Shambala for a few years - last year I found one in a portaloo and took a call as I took a...well y'know.

[progue]

At shambala, if I remeber rightly, they have two sets of them in different areas of the festival. When you pick up the phone and dial it calls a phone in the other place and if someone is passing they pick it up for a random conversation.

So the trigger for it to ring is someone dialing at one end I would imagine.

Presumably when it rings out nobody else bothers picking up at the other end...i imagine that happens a lot.

[steph78]

Get ready to receive Steve it made me laugh ha ha

[PlasticFox]

I picked one up that wasn't ringing, someone was on the phone straight away saying they had the puncture repair kit I needed, followed by a very random conversation..

Again didn't sound like a festival goer they sounded very prepared to start talking shit the moment I came on the line, and no background noise- At the time I imagined someone in a back office who's job it was to just talk random bollocks to whoever picked up a phone, but seems unlikely now!

[kerplunk]

At shambala, if I remeber rightly, they have two sets of them in different areas of the festival. When you pick up the phone and dial it calls a phone in the other place and if someone is passing they pick it up for a random conversation.

So the trigger for it to ring is someone dialing at one end I would imagine.

Presumably when it rings out nobody else bothers picking up at the other end...i imagine that happens a lot.

yes you dialled a number - not sure how many there were.

[kerplunk]

I picked one up that wasn't ringing, someone was on the phone straight away saying they had the puncture repair kit I needed, followed by a very random conversation..

Again didn't sound like a festival goer they sounded very prepared to start talking shit the moment I came on the line, and no background noise- At the time I imagined someone in a back office who's job it was to just talk random bollocks to whoever picked up a phone, but seems unlikely now!

More likely you picked it up just as they called (or the ringer was broken) and they'd already decided to be someone from a bicycle repair shop to whoever answered

[brettredmayne]

My friend was asked if she wanted some German sausage

[kerplunk]

Yes, I wondered that. Perhaps a mini-PABX of some description in between, or perhaps hooked up to larger a site-wide one with rules in place to trigger the call. Or maybe something more sophisticated like an IP-Telephony switch that can be programmed to make the call and connection...?

It's not a facility of phone systems to generate artificial calls (at least without using computerized diallers like a call-centre would use - bit over the top). Much easier just to use a basic cheap as chips pabx. With a slightly more sophisticated pabx you could make it call random extensions on lifting the handset - no dialling required. Just needs a system that does 'hunt groups'.

Edited July 10, 2014 by kerplunk

[micropizza]

We reckoned each phone box with the various 'sex line' style cards stuck inside with the numbers - one was crossed out in each phone box, that was the number of the one you were in, so you were calling different ones around the dance village.

My friend dialled and answered a couple, just from his side it sounded very amusing, I thought it was a great funny idea!