Secret Garden Party 2017 Alcohol

[thetime]

Pre ordering isn't a new venture at festivals, it's been done for many years at festivals.

Trying to force it on people is the only error the festival in question has made.

[eFestivals]

9 minutes ago, thetime said:

Pre ordering isn't a new venture at festivals, it's been done for many years at festivals.

Trying to force it on people is the only error the festival in question has made.

yep, i know pre-ordering has been done before.

It might be the case that making it 'compulsory' via a no-booze rule has been done before too, tho i'm not aware of anywhere having done that, and i took the trouble to ask Scott before i considered writing anything (as he'd have a more-complete knowledge of that sort of thing that me). He didn't know of anywhere, apart from at festivals which are completely alcohol-free (of which there's a few, aimed at under-agers).

Edited January 6, 2017 by eFestivals

[zahidf]

I think its there own throats they are cutting really. Most punters will probably be massively annoyed by the idea. Especially if they only hear about it at the festival when their booze is taken, or if they get an email after they have bought a tic.

It sells out most years. Put another tenner on tic prices if they are losing money on it despite that!

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I went to SGP once and only found out about their previous alcohol restrictions after buying the ticket. That this was my own fault for not looking in to it there is no doubt. I did manage to smuggle 7 litres of red wine past the bastards though. Where there's a will there's a way. I've shared my method with quite a few 'gardeners' off this site previously, both to help them out and for the vicarious pleasure that it gave me knowing that more people were getting past SGP's scandalous previous restriction policy.

Now they don't appear to want you to bring any of your own booze in at all, but buy their booze only either at the bars or via a pre-ordring service. It would be nice if people voted with their feet on this one and that ticket sales plummeted. I doubt it will happen though. As has been implied before, many people attending are off their noggins on other stuff, so maybe they're not as fussed as I was then and will remain to be. It wasn't a bad festival but it's not one that I would re-attend. Why go to a fascistic type festival when there are many rival festivals that don't want to skank every last penny out of you?

PS - I'm no longer in the market for sharing my smuggling method so please don't ask if you were thinking of doing so. It's not that I wouldn't want to share it with punters, I just don't want to share it with the organisers who, I suspect, may well be following this thread. Paranoid, me? I'm not paranoid. Just ask that bloke following me, he'll tell you I'm not.

 

[Paul ™]

Boomtown has a pretty strict alcohol restriction, but at least they are honest about it and why they do it.

While I don't agree with it, it was pretty easy to smuggle booze in both years I have went.

I'd rather they allowed a bit more in, so don't have to break the rules, I also spend a fair bit at the bars at festivals, more so when I don't need to hide the amount I take in.

[Bisque]

Global Gathering had this same rule. Smuggled in my booze in my tent. But none of my friends knew about the restrictions until I told them after being the only sensible one & 'proper' festival goer & reading the small print on the website.

We all took drugs anyway so wasn't a big deal, much like the crowd at SGP will be doing, still a pain not even being able to take a crate of tins into the campsite though.

[holpols]

I was about to put down a deposit for a ticket last week and thought I'd have a read through the FAQ's first, saw this rule and took a screenshot. The thing that was ludicrous wasn't necessarily the pre-ordering thing, it was the limit - 8 cans per person! 

I then went to post it on their Facebook page, and found that they'd disabled wall posts... the only way to raise awareness of it was to comment in reply to their own posts. Good to see eFestivals covered it, although even in SGP's responses they covered the preordering, but still no mention of the limit per person! 

Very shady indeed, guessing they were planning to wait till most of the tickets had been sold and then reveal it. 

[johnl]

Never been before and never likely to go but that is absolutely shocking. Why would anyone bother going there?

[zahidf]

Here is the thing: fair enough, they want to increase their bar takings. But there are ways to do it without taking the piss, like they seem to be at the moment. 

 

8 cans over 4 days: 2 a day, then off to the bar with you!

 

[zahidf]

Also, ice cold red wine??? Yuck! And no spirits either.

[atomised]

Thats awful, would put me right off

[Paul ™]

That is ridiculous!

[Funktownbro]

That is a sure way to not only piss your punters off but the council who are licensing your event too, they take into account the business festival's generate in the local economy, this is a step to take it away from local businesses, the argument could be made "tesco isn't local" but they employ local people, other local shops will miss out too, sounds like a slippery slope to me...

[Funktownbro]

I've also just noticed they're milking more by implementing a parking charge this year too, although they're calling it  "a green incentive" I suspect profit is the drive (no pun intended) here too, it's never practical for the majority to travel by train or coach to festival's so they know they will rake it in....Call me a cynic, looking at the coach pick up stations, none are local and so locals will be hit hardest, the coach prices are not cheap either.

as was mentioned earlier, Mr Fellowes may be low on funds but with the "ethos" they promote and making their punters feel the biggest and most important part of the party will surely ware thin, you can call punters "Gardner's" and spout ethos all you like but I'm sure people are not stupid enough to drink it in.....

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Mr Fellowes may well be doing a Gerald Ratner. The new parking charge is £20 plus £2 booking fee! That's an incredible leap away from free parking. He may catch people out this year but will people continue to stand for it when there's so much competition? A nice slow down in ticket sales compared to previous years would be nice to see in order to get the message across.

[Braysh]

This is an update from E-Festivals, plus my thoughts on the situation, which I have posted on Facebook:

Just had an e-mail from E-Festivals, and it would appear that the Secret Garden Party have been taken over by anti-success, left-wing bully boys, and if I was the CEO (or whatever the person in charge is known as) at Tesco, I would be looking at this festival very closely.This is what I have just copied from E-Festivals:

"Following our report yesterday (see here) of The Secret Garden Party's new 'no alcohol' policy, The Secret Garden Party have just sent us the following statement:-

We are considering a pre-order off-license system so people would be able to order and collect, exactly as you would at a supermarket, and at competitive prices rather than money being spent at the local Tesco superstore which cleans up every year – apparently describing the weekend as ‘bigger than Christmas'.

We were not trying to slip this past anyone, we are finalising the logistics behind the scheme, and preparing to release the pre-order system. For this to work it would have to be fully publicised, but we put a note in our ts and cs, initially more as a marker, with more info to come. Admittedly we could have been clearer here

Our intention was yes, to make a little more money from alcohol sales that we can put back into the party but also for the sake of our gardeners (campers), who would no longer have to lug warm beers from their cars or the bus to their camping sites, rather get cold ones on site when they'd arrived.

Make of it what you will."

It's quite apparent that whoever is in charge of this festival is not only getting a bit greedy, but think they can dictate to their attendees where they buy their booze. If I had booked tickets for this festival, I would now be reselling them out of absolute disgust at this dog in the manger attitude towards Tesco and their other competitors. There is no way that this festival will be able to offer their customers either the same choice or low prices that a supermarket can, and they should be ashamed of themselves for this disgraceful 'Big Brother' stance on their alcohol sales. People are prepared to accept the high prices in the arena whilst they can keep costs down with their own booze in the camping ground. To try to force the organisers' choices and prices on the campers is absolutely outrageous, and this is definitely not a festival I will be attending. Disgusting.

 

 

[eFestivals]

20 minutes ago, Braysh said:

It's quite apparent that whoever is in charge of this festival is not only getting a bit greedy

That's an easy conclusion to arrive at, but actually that might not be any part of it.

Lots of people think that festivals are cash cows, but from what i know an awful lot of them struggle to make the finances work. And even if the finances do work, it only takes one bad year to fuck things up. Just look at bestival as an example.

So while the suggested alcohol rules are obviously about money, it'as not necessarily the case they're driven by greed. 
(just to be clear, I don't know either way - but I feel it's fair to point out it might not be driven by greed) 

I think rules like these are a mistake by the organisers and likely to upset their clientelle, and also don't do the wider festival scene any favours.

If they need to increase income, I feel that's best done with an up-front increase of the ticket price (with an explanation for why, if necessary) rather than something which i reckon is likely to create some bad feeling.

[zahidf]

33 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

That's an easy conclusion to arrive at, but actually that might not be any part of it.

Lots of people think that festivals are cash cows, but from what i know an awful lot of them struggle to make the finances work. And even if the finances do work, it only takes one bad year to fuck things up. Just look at bestival as an example.

So while the suggested alcohol rules are obviously about money, it'as not necessarily the case they're driven by greed. 
(just to be clear, I don't know either way - but I feel it's fair to point out it might not be driven by greed) 

I think rules like these are a mistake by the organisers and likely to upset their clientelle, and also don't do the wider festival scene any favours.

If they need to increase income, I feel that's best done with an up-front increase of the ticket price (with an explanation for why, if necessary) rather than something which i reckon is likely to create some bad feeling.

yeah i agree. It may be just them HAVING to increase income to survive, but they either increase ticket prices or make cuts elsewhere. This policy is only going to help them one year and will really annoy ticketholders i reckon

Edited January 11, 2017 by zahidf

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

7 hours ago, eFestivals said:

If they need to increase income, I feel that's best done with an up-front increase of the ticket price (with an explanation for why, if necessary) rather than something which i reckon is likely to create some bad feeling.

I couldn't agree more.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

7 hours ago, zahidf said:

 This policy is only going to help them one year and will really annoy ticketholders i reckon

Also agreed. They've sold out of the early bird tickets for this year already. Would be interesting to know if future ticket sales this year slow down, and what effect it will have on next years sales after many have been duped this year.

[Bingbongbutler]

I can't seem to find that statement within their FAQs. Has it been removed? 

[eFestivals]

11 hours ago, Bingbongbutler said:

I can't seem to find that statement within their FAQs. Has it been removed? 

Yup.

I'm thinking that as they no longer have any alcohol conditions on their website, anyone who buys tickets right now won't be subject to any alcohol restrictions. After all, those are the published conditions attached to the sale of a ticket.

It would be interesting to try that angle with them.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

 

Are SGP doing this then - see below?

[DiscoDolly]

Remember this is the same festival who last year Didn't replace main headliners  "Primal Scream" after the band had to pull out due to Gillespie's Accident, but who didn't inform punters or change their billing online until the last minute despite other festivals where the band were due to play bringing in a replacement headline act. The organisers had more than enough time to find another headline act.  Many people were unaware until their arrival that the band weren't appearing   (the spot was taken by a band further down the bill). The attendance for 2016 was way down and was estimated at 17000 people, Almost half capacity. 

Edited January 29, 2017 by DiscoDolly

[Yoghurt on a Stick II]

9 hours ago, DiscoDolly said:

 The attendance for 2016 was way down and was estimated at 17000 people, Almost half capacity. 

Interesting statistic. And in order to prevent the decline they, in my opinion, decided not to review their fascistic alcohol policy, but to turn the screws on it even more. Doing a 'Gerald' I'd say;