V Festival at Staffordshire pushes the right musical buttons, but camping isn't so enjoyable

V Festival (Staffordshire) 2009 review

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V Festival (Staffordshire) 2009

Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd August 2009
Weston Park, Staffordshire, TF11 8LE, England MAP
£152.50 w/e with coach travel

V festival has always managed to put on such a vast array of different genres of music to cater for every type of music fan possible, dance, pop, rock, blues, rap, techno, new, cheesy, 80’s, retro, are always a staple diet of V festivals charm, and this years festival was no exception. Boasting a list of bands ranging from The Killers, Razorlight, and Oasis, to Dizzee Rascal, and The Human League. There is no other festival that would have the courage to put such a vast array of bands on the same event.

So musically this years V festival hit all the right buttons, and sure enough every band that we chose to see were a pleasure to watch, well, apart from Oasis who just seemed to be a little bit reserved and showing absolutely no signs of enjoying themselves. (although it is a frequent occurrence)

However away from the music, it felt as if the organisers had decided to short change the punter who had stumped up £160 upwards for camping tickets, as the queues to get into the main arena were much longer than in previous years, generally having to queue for at least 40 minutes to be let in the 'campsite wristband' entrance, yet when I approached security on the day ticket gate when no one was waiting to go in, security couldn't explain to me why we weren't allowed through that gate. Just a blank look and a severe lack of common sense would appear as they tried to use the one brain cell to figure out a good enough reason other than "we've been told not to let campsite wristbands in this entrance". I pray for that I live long enough to meet a security team at a festival who are allowed to use common sense, I somehow doubt that will happen in my lifetime.

So after another lengthy queue to get into the campsite due to a new barrier system to allow one person in at a time, we finally got to our campsite, and would you believe it there were no toilets in red campsite, or rather none that I could find. Every time you needed a toilet it was a long walk into the next campsite and then another queue for roughly 15 minutes before having access to what is surely a basic human right. However armed with that knowledge it is easy to understand why punters at the festival were urinating along the perimeter fence inside the arena.

So the organisers philosophy must be something along the lines of charge the punters more and give them less this year, maybe I should get some T-shirts printed with that slogan on it for them to sell next year.

However the weather was superb all weekend, and apart from the nightmare with queues and toilets, it was a pleasant enough weekend, and with the exception of Oasis, there didn't seem to be a dodgy performance.

However, I will have to think long and hard about going back next year as a camping punter, I think I might just buy two day tickets and get in without any queues and not have to plan my toilet breaks like a military operation.

review by: Luke Seagrave

photos by: Gary Stafford