Chaos.

[Stuart1000]

Didn't they completely reroute the site a few years ago so it bypassed the oil pipe altogether?

Pretty sure there's similar oil pipes running underneath many major UK cities.

[addicted2noise]

the problem with that is that T becoming about the oldies will dilute what T is to the youngers.

 

There's just not the population for T to work in a similar way to how Glastonbury does,

 

Ireland has a smaller population than Scotland yet Electric Picnic managed to sell close to 50,000 tickets in addition to other festivals like Forbidden Fruit, Longitude and Body and Soul all of which have similar line ups focusing on 6 music type acts. Green Man and End of the Road have both sold out too so there's clearly a market for it. The thing is after recent years I'm not sure I trust DF anymore and would prefer it if festival republic or PCL started a new festival.

Edited July 15, 2015 by addicted2noise

[eFestivals]

Pretty sure there's similar oil pipes running underneath many major UK cities.

 

absolutely correct.

 

In the case of Balado, it very much sounds as tho it's one of these thing where the 'elf's are justifying their employment.

[glendvd]

I got the impression Ellis just got a bit bored and fancied a change so made the pipe an excuse to move.  Bet he wishes he hadn't now.  Genuinely can't see the festival recovering fully from what happened this year.  Have hardly seen any positive feedback about it.  The weather obviously didn't help and obviously made small matters seem a million times worse, so his luck was cursed in that respect, but people won't forget all the things that went wrong this year coupled with the weather, it will live in people's memories.  The amount of people I've read who've said they'll not be going back is massive, looked at lots on twitter and various other sources, and can't recall a single post of someone saying they wish they were back or can't wait for next year.

Edited July 15, 2015 by glendvd

[eFestivals]

Ireland has a smaller population than Scotland yet Electric Picnic managed to sell close to 50,000 tickets in addition to other festivals like Forbidden Fruit, Longitude and Body and Soul all of which have similar line ups focusing on 6 music type acts. Green Man and End of the Road have both sold out too so there's clearly a market for it. The thing is after recent years I'm not sure I trust DF anymore and would prefer it if festival republic or PCL started a new festival.

 

Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is a greater population. The border matters little for this sort of thing.

 

As you point out, EP gets a lower crowd than T.

 

For all the while that T is sucking up the majority of festival attendances in Scotland, it's going to be mighty hard for another festival which covers some of the same things to succeed - as the likes of Rockness and Connect have shown.

 

Now, it might be that you'd be happy with T shrinking to give space to other events, but they'd also be unintended/unwanted consequences from that as well - such it becoming harder to attract the very biggest acts to Scotland. If there's no event with a huge money-pot anymore, the hugest bands won't come or will come less often.

[addicted2noise]

Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is a greater population. The border matters little for this sort of thing.

As you point out, EP gets a lower crowd than T.

Well you could argue Scotland also shares a border with England but that's being a bit petty. I still think a smaller festival like green man would work and would cover the 20,000 or so punters T have lost in recent years. Do you know if the festival is even going ahead next year? T have been pretty quiet about it.

[devilman]

It now seems quite obvious that the draw downs since 2012 have been done with the move in mind. All the extra stages etc just won't fit into Strathallan. It's always going to be a ned fest whilst it is there. If they booted slam and had something like the lockup at Leeds that played proper music all weekend then I might go back but until then I'm out.

[xtrmntr75]

the problem with that is that T becoming about the oldies will dilute what T is to the youngers.

 

There's just not the population for T to work in a similar way to how Glastonbury does,

Fook, I'm 40 in October. Am I an oldie? When did that happen? I thought oldies listened to Radio 2 and Classic FM   I wouldn't think the nippers would be too bothered as long as they got their EDM and cabaret fix. I'm not talking about either / or, more and. Streamline so there's not the ridiculous situation of War On Drugs being between Afrojack and Guetta.on R1.

[glendvd]

See on FB T are blaming the folks at the unofficial campsite for causing the lack of stewards and signage at their coach park.  Apparently they were walking back to their campsite and this caused all the problems.  Utter bollox

Thing is, T are saying they warned them to put buses on and they were ignored.  Well if T knew this, they would then have known the road would be littered with people and therefore could have made plans for it in advance.  Blaming someone else (and from what I've read, that campsite was great and had no problems whatsoever) who sounded like they were actually properly organised is ridiculous.

[5co77ie]

there's talk in the Scottish press (who ironically harped on about the pipeline danger and how it should move) about the licence should be reviewed - i don't think that's likely to happen the licence is in place until 2017 and any festival which moves is going to have a couple of years of teething trouble (look at WOMAD's move to Malmsbury). Ellis has acknowledged it takes a couple of years to properly iron out the problems.

 

Was it really that much chaos? Or is it people going 'oh this isn't as good as it was before, therefore I'm writing it off' queues of traffic arriving and leaving festivals is nothing new.

[eFestivals]

Well you could argue Scotland also shares a border with England but that's being a bit petty. I

yep, tho the difference is there's no particular reason why someone in England would feel the need to travel to T (outside of it having a particular band that person wants to see). It doesn't have the same general draw as works on the island of Ireland where there's only the one large event in easy-ish access.

 

 

still think a smaller festival like green man would work and would cover the 20,000 or so punters T have lost in recent years.

 

There's a few other smaller fests managing to work in Scotland, and if they felt something like that was viable surely that's the direction one would go..?

 

Do you know if the festival is even going ahead next year? T have been pretty quiet about it.

No idea.

 

From what i've read there were enough issues for T to not be too bullish about a another fest next year, tho some comments I've read have had Geoff saying everything can be sorted much better having found out where the specific issues are - and to be fair, that's pretty much how it works for any new event. You don't find where the short-comings are until you do it.

Edited July 15, 2015 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Fook, I'm 40 in October. Am I an oldie? When did that happen? I thought oldies listened to Radio 2 and Classic FM   I wouldn't think the nippers would be too bothered as long as they got their EDM and cabaret fix. I'm not talking about either / or, more and. Streamline so there's not the ridiculous situation of War On Drugs being between Afrojack and Guetta.on R1.

 

but in the same way that some here are saying they don't see enough of what they like nowadays to make them go, the same happens with those EDM fans if you start diluting what they like.

 

It's one of these things where they could probably get a better balance for those who still lap up indie landfill, but there's also a limit on what will work.

 

From the posts I've read here the EDM is hugely popular and the landfill isn't - and that's about more than just what they're putting on. It's about where musical fashions have moved to.

[kieranboruc]

Thing is, T are saying they warned them to put buses on and they were ignored.  Well if T knew this, they would then have known the road would be littered with people and therefore could have made plans for it in advance.  Blaming someone else (and from what I've read, that campsite was great and had no problems whatsoever) who sounded like they were actually properly organised is ridiculous.

 

I stayed there. They had buses but they couldnt get up the road past Kinkell bridge due to the tailbacks. The Lethangie site was ran fantastically well and Ellis is clutching at straws.

I did the walk back it was around 40 mins and cars where backed up the entrire way it was nothing to do with people walking

[5co77ie]

..."scandal-hit festival" now apparently

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/park-after-rock-comes-clean-6069941

[Stuart1000]

It seriously wasn't that bad. A few traffic jams and that was it. Nothing that any big festival doesn't experience. It's all being blown out of all proportions.

It's always the case, those with a negative experience will speak louder than those with a positive one.

[Andy In The Park]

..."scandal-hit festival" now apparently

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/park-after-rock-comes-clean-6069941

Got as far as 'Tennants' and decided that was enough for me. If they can't be bothered to spell the name properly then I doubt they have really done much proper research.

[GlastoSimon]

there's talk in the Scottish press (who ironically harped on about the pipeline danger and how it should move) about the licence should be reviewed - i don't think that's likely to happen the licence is in place until 2017 and any festival which moves is going to have a couple of years of teething trouble (look at WOMAD's move to Malmsbury). Ellis has acknowledged it takes a couple of years to properly iron out the problems.

 

Was it really that much chaos? Or is it people going 'oh this isn't as good as it was before, therefore I'm writing it off' queues of traffic arriving and leaving festivals is nothing new.

 

Talking of WOMAD, I passed the site last night (or at least the delivery drop-off point) and had no idea it was as close to me as it was Only about 40 minutes away - will have to give it a go if I can afford it plus the usual Glastonbury visit. I see now that it has moved relatively recently, although that was about seven years ago!

 

Interesting stuff with T, I guess its important for them to differentiate between 'teething problems' and 'the new site just won't work'. The fact that people are suggesting it was much better getting in/out on Sunday suggests it might just be teething problems which will be sorted for next year. 

[eFestivals]

Talking of WOMAD, I passed the site last night (or at least the delivery drop-off point) and had no idea it was as close to me as it was Only about 40 minutes away - will have to give it a go if I can afford it plus the usual Glastonbury visit. I see now that it has moved relatively recently, although that was about seven years ago!

WOMAD's a lovely fest and will suit anyone who's a music fan rather than a fan of specific bands or genres.

 

Interesting stuff with T, I guess its important for them to differentiate between 'teething problems' and 'the new site just won't work'. The fact that people are suggesting it was much better getting in/out on Sunday suggests it might just be teething problems which will be sorted for next year.

I first went to T at Balado in 2000 - the first year it sold out, and so was consequently much busier than it had been in the years prior to that. There was a LOT of traffic chaos as a result, and a lot of what I've read about the traffic chaos at the new site seems to be in a similar ball-park, tho i'm not sure that people were stuck for quite as long at Balado in 2000.

 

Anyway, those issues improved a lot over the following years I went, despite the limitations of the roads immediately adjacent, so i'm sure that some of the traffic issues around the new site can be improved, tho whether they can be improved enough is a different thing.

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by eFestivals

[Stuart1000]

I see there is now a Facebook page 'Tintheparktruth' which is sharing people's horror stories from the festival and demanding the festival be shut down. I've read some of these stories and the main complaints are that the campsite was untidy on Monday morning, not everyone was searched on the way in and that it wasn't at Balado. In response:

1) Of course campsite with 60,000 people was untidy after 4 days. What else would you expect?

2) If every single bag was searched on entry, campers would be queuing for days. The police and security tried as hard as they could to balance safety with getting you into the event swiftly. I know at the day entrance that every single person got a frisk and a bag search. There were sniffer dogs at both entrances too. Apart from strip searching everyone on entry, I don't know what else they could do to try and stop drugs.

3) You knew it wasn't at Balado when you bought the ticket, stop complaining about it!

Shout out to the girl who complained that there were no flushing toilets in the campsite! What else were you expecting?!?!?

[crowie]

the pipe thing is rather ridiculous.

 

The same pipeline goes under at least one school.

 

 

And the runway at Aberdeen airport.

 

there's talk in the Scottish press (who ironically harped on about the pipeline danger and how it should move) about the licence should be reviewed - i don't think that's likely to happen the licence is in place until 2017 and any festival which moves is going to have a couple of years of teething trouble (look at WOMAD's move to Malmsbury). Ellis has acknowledged it takes a couple of years to properly iron out the problems.

 

Was it really that much chaos? Or is it people going 'oh this isn't as good as it was before, therefore I'm writing it off' queues of traffic arriving and leaving festivals is nothing new.

 

The license for the site is in place for 3 years, the actual entertainment license which is needed for it to go ahead is granted, or not, on a yearly basis.

 

In relation to traffic chaos, I got off lightly mainly due to my private minibus driver being prepared to be on site 75 mins before the headline act even finished. Subsequently we were away within 30 odd mins of midnight/11pm both nights.

 

However I know of people who were taking hours to get away after the event. The roads especially around the site are just are not designed to cope with that amount of traffic. And if someone breaks down, everything grounds to a halt as you can't pass them, there isn't enough room,

 

 

From what i've read there were enough issues for T to not be too bullish about a another fest next year, tho some comments I've read have had Geoff saying everything can be sorted much better having found out where the specific issues are - and to be fair, that's pretty much how it works for any new event. You don't find where the short-comings are until you do it.

 

The one thing Geoff can't sort is the roads around the site and the size of them. They aren't big enough. At one point of the route all buses were directed through a farm front yards FFS!!

 

 

I first went to T at Balado in 2000 - the first year it sold out, and so was consequently much busier than it had been in the years prior to that. There was a LOT of traffic chaos as a result, and a lot of what I've read about the traffic chaos at the new site seems to be in a similar ball-park, tho i'm not sure that people were stuck for quite as long at Balado in 2000.

 

Anyway, those issues improved a lot over the following years I went, despite the limitations of the roads immediately adjacent, so i'm sure that some of the traffic issues around the new site can be improved, tho whether they can be improved enough is a different thing.

 

 

Having been to every T at Balado bar one the only year I remember real traffic chaos was the first year it opened on a Friday. 

 

The difference with Balado was that it sat about 10 mins off the motorway, not in the middle of nowhere. From the reports of Strathallan, the traffic chaos was worse as you just couldn't get the volume of traffic needed to the site in good enough time to get people away from the site again quickly. Campers waiting 7 and 8 hours for buses on Monday sums it up for me. That would never have happened at Balado.

[mattrik3]

I got the impression Ellis just got a bit bored and fancied a change so made the pipe an excuse to move. Bet he wishes he hadn't now. Genuinely can't see the festival recovering fully from what happened this year. Have hardly seen any positive feedback about it. The weather obviously didn't help and obviously made small matters seem a million times worse, so his luck was cursed in that respect, but people won't forget all the things that went wrong this year coupled with the weather, it will live in people's memories. The amount of people I've read who've said they'll not be going back is massive, looked at lots on twitter and various other sources, and can't recall a single post of someone saying they wish they were back or can't wait for next year.

Those who are negative about any subject are those who are the most vocal. While I don't dispute that there are those that have criticised it, any one I've spoken to or seen on Facebook had a great time and are gutted it's over. Being from Auchterarder myself I was camping with 70/80 people and probably bumped into another 200/300 that I knew over the weekend. Not a single one had a bad experience, everyone loved it and will be back. Anyone I spoke to from out with Scotland that was there for the first time loved it

[eFestivals]

The one thing Geoff can't sort is the roads around the site and the size of them. They aren't big enough. At one point of the route all buses were directed through a farm front yards FFS!!

He can't sort out the roads, but he can sort out a traffic management plan which impacts less onto the roads.

 

The same issue (to at least some extent, I don't know the new site) existed at Balado when i first went in 2000 ... and things were much improved in the immediately following years that I also went to (and that's despite a size increase too, I think).

 

From the reports of Strathallan, the traffic chaos was worse as you just couldn't get the volume of traffic needed to the site in good enough time to get people away from the site again quickly.

Not quite. The "volume of traffic needed" is something different to the volume of traffic it had.

 

The traffic it had was not the most efficient traffic, because plenty of it was private cars (and quite possibly not-full private cars).

 

The answer is clearly within the idea of limiting private cars to some extent. The exact mechanism for doing it will be dependent on the various local factors.

[Paulk2904]

I've got to agree that the roads can't be sorted. I drive every year to Balado and got the bus to strathallan this year via a mini bus hire. Our driver said he wouldn't be taking hires next year because of it.

Short of building a new road I've no idea how they can solve it. As someone said above our bus literally went through a dirt track in a farm to get to the site. Nearly all the roads are single track, they simply cannot cope. On the way home on Monday a coach got stuck in a ditch on one of the single track roads and we had to walk for miles down the traffic que to get to our bus where the driver had been stuck for hours.

On top of the traffic the arena needs sorted out because it just isn't big enough just now, I don't know what scope they have to extend it or whatever but it needs to be bigger.

Despite all this I still enjoyed myself and had a great weekend but I'll definetly be thinking hard about going next year.

[eFestivals]

Worthy Farm has plenty of single track roads around it too, and is the least-car-accessable festival site I can think of that I've been to - despite being by-far the biggest festival.

 

They'll be plenty of improvements that can be made to traffic management, tho that doesn't necessarily mean they'll make the punters any happier than they'll have been to sit in their cars and wait.

 

8 hour waits to get out of the Glasto car parks isn't unusual (tho perhaps a bit less nowadays), and in the main there's not much in the way of complaints about it, because it's what people have come to expect.

 

Part of what T have to do is to manage people's expectations, as well as the traffic.

[Lor1]

It seriously wasn't that bad. A few traffic jams and that was it. Nothing that any big festival doesn't experience. It's all being blown out of all proportions.

It's always the case, those with a negative experience will speak louder than those with a positive one.

Stuart did you camp???