WestOxonwards

My fourth and probably final visit, despite living a few miles away. Terrible line up due to obvious cut back on budgets. A real lack of bands and a couple less venues.....none of the glorious stumbling upon a band you hadn't heard before. Lot of solo acts or blokes stood at decks/laptops. FR have a massive amount to answer for and I hope the powers that be at Cornbury House tell then to f off back to reading and Leeds as it was a disgrace to the area how the venue was being treated. Bicep and Jamie XX back to back on a Saturday pre 10pm was an absolute joke too. Monotonous when not on 'one' at 3am. Found the food kiosks not as varied as previous years and just the general vibe way down .....when after what we have been through....it should have been through the roof. The sight of thousands leaving on Sunday was a damning indictment of those planning and running the festival not being up to the job given the wonderful venue.

Somewhere Bicep is still playing a 49.5 hour song, running off a loop on his laptop. Great at 3am but Saturday early evening? Nah thanks.

Real drop in quality of acts, quantity and general vibe. Yes post pandemic, yes the weather but after four previous vivists can't but feel wholly underwhelmed. Big lack of bands, lots of solo acts, not many other live venues to stumble up bands, lots of djs (Craig Charles is good but come on he'll DJ at a drop of a hat for a few hundred) and as for Saturday evening.....four hours of two blokes hiding behind their laptops/decks. Great individually, great down the valley but back to back on the main stage?! Shoddy thinking around the line up and smacked big cost cutting and a whole lot of a lack of imagination/knowledge of the music scene to get bands. The valley was very badly managed on Friday night too and didn't want to risk the entry crush again. As for the sanitation....and absolute disgrace. We left on Sunday and can't help feel that the new management have utterly messed up what used to be a great and relatively unique experience.