Boomtown Festival 2016

[frostypaw]

That's probably a good observation about them all being so young - there's a lot that upsets me about how they go about this all. Boomtown have said they are in talks with the council/police about offering testing like at the SGP this year which is a great start but until the police learn to back the *($% off so people are more ready to call for help I think these accidents will keep happening. The young are even more likely to be scared of the police-related consequences and not fully able to balance the reality of the other consequences

 

As a more general observation the level of wreckedness seemed down a bit this year - we reckoned the Thursday/Friday heat took out most of the overly enthusiastic early on

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, frostypaw said:

That's probably a good observation about them all being so young - there's a lot that upsets me about how they go about this all. Boomtown have said they are in talks with the council/police about offering testing like at the SGP this year which is a great start but until the police learn to back the *($% off so people are more ready to call for help I think these accidents will keep happening. The young are even more likely to be scared of the police-related consequences and not fully able to balance the reality of the other consequences

Yeah, I guess you're right about that fear of authority.

About a decade ago I took someone to an on-site medic at Glastonbury after they felt unhappy after taking mdma (they were fine) - but I had no fear in the discussion I knew I'd be having. I'm not sure my response of seeking medical advise would have been exactly the same if I'd have felt there might be consequences back on me from what I had to disclose.

 

1 minute ago, frostypaw said:

As a more general observation the level of wreckedness seemed down a bit this year - we reckoned the Thursday/Friday heat took out most of the overly enthusiastic early on

How was the dust? It was horrid in the short time I was there on Thursday, which played its (small) part in my choice to bail out.

[frostypaw]

26 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

How was the dust? It was horrid in the short time I was there on Thursday, which played its (small) part in my choice to bail out.

Actually not that bad in-festival - they had the old water spreaders out so the roads didn't get too bad. The old mines was funny by sunday though with each dancey number resulting in clouds of dust

 

The gates were spectacular - everyone came back from shifts smothered. Debating whether Mr Bruce is actually grey haired or it's just years of the dust has turned it

[eFestivals]

any ideas what this is all about, anyone...?

 

[pilton digger]

10 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

any ideas what this is all about, anyone...?

 

It is the bridge from the coach park over the road and into Lions Den field.

[mr flow]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

the heat might have played a part, tho if it's drug-related it's probably only the case of hastening something that would have happened anyway.

I'm in no way trying to blame boomtown - it's not them putting drugs down anyone's throat. Recent deaths at/around festivals have mostly been youngsters of around 18, which suggests to me that the issue is mostly being caused by inexperience &/or lack of knowledge about what they're taking - and quite probably also to do with the very strong pills that are around currently.

All the same, some places (more than just boomtown, t in the park is the most-obvious for this year) are seeming to help bring this out in people, and while I would strongly object to any attempt to deem them responsible or even culpable for these tragedies, I do think they should be trying very hard to find new and better ways to deal with issues around drugs - tho I appreciate how difficult this might be, given that the authorities expect them to just be 100% anti-drugs.

So so tragic with so many so young.

I completely agree on the drug front. Although, I think this is more a society based issue rather than something that festivals need to do to help out with the issue. The nation remains 100% anti drugs and as a result, youngsters are (as most of us did) rebelling and getting in to taking drugs. Unfortunately, as on the whole the government remains 100% anti drugs and are convinced they'll win the war on drugs, sensible ways of educating youngsters aren't being pushed forward. I think I read a stat recently that the UK have had 50 drug related deaths this year already, and it only had 8 in 2010. Perhaps drug testing stations at all festivals would be a sensible starting point, but this would have to get the authorisation from the authorities in charge of that festival.

In an ideal world, the UK would learn from Portugal and look at decimalisation of all drugs and install a much more efficient drug education and counselling system for people at a much younger age. It's interesting countries and areas that seem to have adopted this approach, appear to have had a dramatic fall in drug use, drug related crime and most importantly, drug related death.

The unfortunate thing is, I can't ever see the UK adopting this approach, which sadly means we'll all probably be having the same conversation next year after a tragic loss of life at a music event/festival.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, pilton digger said:

It is the bridge from the coach park over the road and into Lions Den field.

ahhh, k.

So was that about them not needing to go thru a normal gate cos they'd been wristbanded on the coaches, then? I don't understand why there's need of a bridge.

[pilton digger]

I think it is purely to get them across the road safely.

[frostypaw]

46 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

ahhh, k.

So was that about them not needing to go thru a normal gate cos they'd been wristbanded on the coaches, then? I don't understand why there's need of a bridge.

There was an access road that sliced that field off from the rest of the festival which needed to stay open so they built a bridge over - fine idea really

But the reason you'll be seeing it is it was nothing like wide enough and needed two so it could go both ways perhaps - the queues to get up it got out of hand on Thursday and became a bit of a scrum. Boomtown strikes again!

I dunno how much the new fields got used though - the far reaches of Chinatown camping were completely empty and it never filled up to the front of Sector 6 (but that might just be people being sensible really). I've heard a rumour of a massive increase in numbers next year and I'm hoping they're not true - they're simply not organised enough to deal with larger numbers yet

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, frostypaw said:

There was an access road that sliced that field off from the rest of the festival which needed to stay open so they built a bridge over - fine idea really

I guess it's (if big enough) the most-perfect solution, tho it seems a bit OTT from what I can imagine festival service traffic to be on that road and no punters needing to cross it for the central days when they're already in.

16 minutes ago, frostypaw said:

I've heard a rumour of a massive increase in numbers next year and I'm hoping they're not true - they're simply not organised enough to deal with larger numbers yet

They got a smallish (5k or 10k, I forget) increase for this year not too long before this year's festival happened, tho I think that got knocked back the first time they tried, didn't it? Given that this year on Thursday wasn't as smooth outside as previous years I can see some scepticism of another increase straight away.

That Thursday thing was weird (including plenty of c**tishness by punters), but with some very obvious flaws in (amongst other things) festival personnel management, 10 people ready to wristband but only one person on the car park gate and stopping every car for a chat, that sort of thing. Having said that, the individual staff I spoke to were lovely and going out of their way to try and help - but when no one knows fuck all there's not really much they can help with.

Edited August 16, 2016 by eFestivals

[frostypaw]

Yeah they desperately needed better traffic control and parking control including the campervans on site - watching the people who'd really taken the piss decamp yesterday morning answered all the space issues from what we could see.

It was a 10k increase and apparently won in a tit-for-tat after smashing down the land use limitations case the local objectors had brought trying to stop the festival entirely. Then he bought the next farm along for lotsamoney. Seems the festival is there for some time - he seemed pretty happy with everything this year for a change.

Lowlands had a bridge connecting outer campsites/campervan fields and it was over twice as wide and two of them and still a bit manic on the way in every year - maybe they just run out of scaffolding, there was some frantic hunting going on by Wednesday

[mr flow]

Wonder if the only way they can improve the traffic management is to have a Glastonbury style coach system that staggers the arrival of coaches to allow a better flow of people? Perhaps say 15% of tickets have to be via a coach/ticket sale.

The roads around there aren't the best or easiest, so unless they start doing the whole opening the car park the night before and just having larger queues to get in, i'm not really sure what's the best way to do it?

[frostypaw]

I'd like video footage of the state of the queue if they opened the car parks the night before - that would be total carnage in a funny/messy way. The condition some people were in by 1pm Thursday was impressive!

Edited August 16, 2016 by frostypaw

[manateemike]

Did the bridge not allow the two camper van fields to be 'on site'.

I was onsite by kids field (eventually) but the other CV fields seemed further away outside. That would have been a bitch not being able to bring alcohol in each day. 

[deebeedoobee]

3 hours ago, manateemike said:

Did the bridge not allow the two camper van fields to be 'on site'.

I was onsite by kids field (eventually) but the other CV fields seemed further away outside. That would have been a bitch not being able to bring alcohol in each day. 

The camper an field behind sector 6 was inside the fence. Just had to walk across the road and we were in the top of sector 6 field.

[JBarbour]

Boomtown - just wow.

I think that's the best festival I've ever done.

Musically not really my taste a lot of it. But as a festival and experience nothing comes close. I'm a Glasto man but I think it's been knocked off perch as a festival.

Heard rumours in the crew areas of further expansions over coming years. 

[manxboba]

I've some cash burning a hole in my pocket and want to go to this next year. 

Now that this years is done do they release early bird tickets for next year with this years prices?? If not does anyone know roughly when next years tickets go on sale??

 

thanks

[ShumbaSharky]

1 hour ago, manxboba said:

I've some cash burning a hole in my pocket and want to go to this next year. 

Now that this years is done do they release early bird tickets for next year with this years prices?? If not does anyone know roughly when next years tickets go on sale??

 

thanks

They went on sale last year on 3rd Nov and 1st tier was £135, so expect something similar. From memory only 1000 tix at this price next tier was £150. 

Also they're doing a winter festival in Bristol on 10th Dec this year for the 1st time, albeit on a smaller scale. 

[frostypaw]

They've done a number of winter mini events before IIRC, friends who went liked them but I can't remember more details - was mostly over Bristol way I think

[dumski]

I'm still amazed at some of the videos going up on Facebook.  The crowds just seem bigger than before.

any decent estimates of the crowd sizes when full, for say Damien Marley and DJ Hype B2B DJ hazard closing sets?

It doesn't need to expand any more than it is IMHO.  Lions den down the gulley from Sector 6 was perfect for me. 

 

Its going to be dead popular next year thanks to the sunshine, probably rain though  

 

[pilton digger]

The winter festival is at Bath and West showground, by Shepton mallet.  Previous events have been around Bristol. Tickets on sale tomorrow apparently from 1900.

[eFestivals]

11 hours ago, pilton digger said:

The winter festival is at Bath and West showground, by Shepton mallet.  Previous events have been around Bristol. Tickets on sale tomorrow apparently from 1900.

great location for you, not so good for getting home afterwards for anyone else.

[man next door]

14 hours ago, dumski said:

I'm still amazed at some of the videos going up on Facebook.  The crowds just seem bigger than before.

any decent estimates of the crowd sizes when full, for say Damien Marley and DJ Hype B2B DJ hazard closing sets?

It doesn't need to expand any more than it is IMHO.  Lions den down the gulley from Sector 6 was perfect for me. 

 

Its going to be dead popular next year thanks to the sunshine, probably rain though  

100% this. 

I gave up Boomtown somewhere round the 20,000 mark (about 2012 probably) - when paying the ever increasing prices to watch the same acts from further and further away no longer seemed like a good deal. 

I still rave to people about the amazing sets etc, but paying £190 to watch the skints from a football pitch away just isn't an option I feel like taking any more.  

[frostypaw]

It's deceptive though - Boomtown crowds are different. People purposefully space themselves for room to dance as a matter of course in a way I've not really experienced elsewhere and we very rarely have any difficulty whatsoever getting from right up front and centre out to the loo and back.

Several times over the years I've arrived for gigs expecting there to be a dense crowd down front and just wandered in to find everyone's all spaced out (boom) and it was easy as pie.

[Sawdusty surfer]

23 hours ago, pilton digger said:

The winter festival is at Bath and West showground, by Shepton mallet.  Previous events have been around Bristol. Tickets on sale tomorrow apparently from 1900.

Anyone got a link for tickets ? 

  Cheers, James.