Silver Hayes - A massive disappointment.

[dcsessions]

Only really went into silver hayes for sub focus. The sonic stage did not work at all. The way it's effectively two tunnels with the sound desk in the middle was just bizarre. Especially when it had it's own space with the cubes outside. Sure the cubes might be nice to look at but it was a colossal waste of space - they should have connected the two outer ends of the tunnels over the top of the cubes to create one big tent. Totally agree about the sound bleeding, the wow stage completely drowned out sonic throughout the festival whenever we were walking through to the john peel or even walking between other and pyramid.

Heard it was a total shambles for rudimental from two of my mates, massive overcrowding and terrible sound unless you were within spitting distance of sound desk.

Just make it a standard big tent for dance music, that's all people want. I go there for the music, not to look at futuristic tent designs and "art" structures. All the dance village/silver hayes (call it what you will) needs is a big main tent for headline dance acts and perhaps 2 other smaller stages/tents which can be themed however you want. Don't think the area as a whole worked at all. Not to mention the massive bottleneck as you enter from the other stage past the urinals.

[Jackmypie]

Wow! stage on thursday was insane. I saw atleast 8 different people snorting coke before pharcyde set alone and I was in the same spot the whole time. After the pharcyde we stayed there, it doesn't seem to have a very good atmosphere and a lot of rude people .. I'll probably stay out of there next year on the thursday and go to Williams Green or something.. Only time I went to silverhayes the whole weekend.

Also snapbacks were fucking everywhere over there.

[The60ftOctopus]

The amount of times I overheard 'Creamfields' this year was endless. Seemed it attracted that crowd this year.

I'm not dissing everybody who goes to Creamfields, but the majority of these people were barging their way through crowds and/or off their faces.

It's a shame really because Silver Hayes had a lot of potential. It just needs more space, bigger stages and a wider/better system to get to and from the area.

[dub-tech]

Great atmosphere for the hospitality boat party on friday i thought. But others complained of attitude at visionquest so swings and roundabouts really

Totally agree about sonic though. Looks good but layout just doesnt work.

[cokebabies92]

The Gully/The Blues were absolutely awesome and from what my sister said the other stages were quite good too, much improved on the old dance village from 2011.

[dccool]

Only really went into silver hayes for sub focus. The sonic stage did not work at all. The way it's effectively two tunnels with the sound desk in the middle was just bizarre. Especially when it had it's own space with the cubes outside. Sure the cubes might be nice to look at but it was a colossal waste of space - they should have connected the two outer ends of the tunnels over the top of the cubes to create one big tent. Totally agree about the sound bleeding, the wow stage completely drowned out sonic throughout the festival whenever we were walking through to the john peel or even walking between other and pyramid.

Heard it was a total shambles for rudimental from two of my mates, massive overcrowding and terrible sound unless you were within spitting distance of sound desk.

Just make it a standard big tent for dance music, that's all people want. I go there for the music, not to look at futuristic tent designs and "art" structures. All the dance village/silver hayes (call it what you will) needs is a big main tent for headline dance acts and perhaps 2 other smaller stages/tents which can be themed however you want. Don't think the area as a whole worked at all. Not to mention the massive bottleneck as you enter from the other stage past the urinals.

[DeanoL]

A very small percentage of dance music is catered for, which is why other venues are needed.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

A very small percentage of all types of music are cancelled for. It's not like there are separate stages for every sub-genre of every other single genre of music. After midnight you've basically got dance in the SE corner and dance in the NW corner and nothing for any other genre.

I'd love to see one or other of the areas completely reworked to be an alternative late-night area catering for other tastes. It was also kinda sad walking through Shangri-la, The Common, Block 9 and The Unfairground on Sunday afternoon, how utterly dead those areas were during the day. The Greenfields were busier, save for the Hell stage in Shangri-la. It's a shame the late night area has to be *just* the late night area, that's a waste (and it's not just an audience thing, most of the bars and stuff were closed).

I think a big re-think would be ideal, perhaps also with the thought that catering for absolutely everyone's musical tastes isn't really needed when the demand for tickets is so high. As to where the big dance acts would play- the Pyramid or Other?

[pie_and_a_pint]

What the fuck is a 'snapback'?

[fatyeti24]

What the fuck is a 'snapback'?

[Matt42]

the whole of the silver hayes area completely bombed. Every act I saw there either had sound problems, a shit crowd, or a shit act.

fatboyslim was great but that wow tent was far too small for the size of people going there.

rudimental on the dance stage was awful, sound sucked.

the gully was okay, for some parts.

[pie_and_a_pint]

hehe, i wondered this so googled it earlier. it is, would you believe, the name the kids these days have for a 'baseball cap'.

i'm getting old and i'm cool with that!

[Glasto fan]

I quite agree with most of the posters on here. The last time I actually enjoyed going to the dance village or Silver Hayes as it is now called, was in 2010. I had a bad experience there in 2011 on the Thursday night with people pushing and shoving when everyone was getting stuck in the really thick mud and I never went back there again for the rest of the festival. This year was also a disaster. We walked through there on Wednesday afternoon before it had all started and was filled with anticipation at the new venues but it just didn't work.

I tried to see Rudimental on Saturday at Sonic but the tent was rammed. It looked like you could stand outside though and watch on the screens but you couldn't hear anything other than the music coming from the stage opposite which was really loud.

A lot of the people there had a serious attitude and were pushing and shoving a woman who had a tiny baby in a pram to try and get to the front. And there isn't just a bottleneck at the entrance from the Other Stage, the one by the John Peel tent is just as bad at times.

I left after 15 minutes on Saturday and didn't go back there as I don't think this area of the festival is for me and therefore wouldn't waste any more of my time there as there are so many nicer places. The final straw was when I saw two security guards chasing some guy through the crowd outside Rudimental. I don't know what he had done but he pushed one of them to the floor and carried on. I hope they got him eventually.

Some friends also went to Silver Hayes to see other acts and said the sound was really bad for those as well, as Sonic is just drowned out by the other stages, which also drown each other out.

[Harry3]

Didnt really spend much time at SH, Im a dance music fan but none of the acts there really interested me, more into the obscure and twisted sounds in the SE Corner and I knew the crowds would be shit for the more mainstream dance DJs so didnt bother. But I did go to the Gully and the Blues, the Heatwave were incredible, the vibes and sound spot on!

I was also in the crush previously mentioned between the other and SH, it was really dangerous, was struggling to stay standing at points and let myself get carried pretty much. Managed to get through and alerted a group of police on the other side but not sure what they actually did. I think I saw they opened a few more fences on one side to make it a bit wider for the rest of the weekend.

[Zero_Newnab]

There were definitely some issues. Wow stage was nowhere near big enough for the volume and crowd it had, Sonic's sound was just bizarre.

I actually liked the Gully and The Blues though.

[autoinflate]

We spent some of Sunday evening in Silver Hayes - saw Dreadzone in the Gully which sounded great and had a perfect sized crowd, all totally up for it and having a great time. Then we moved across for Sub Focus, got a nice spot to the left of the mixing desk where the sound was absolutely banging and plenty of room to dance.

OK, we were only there for two acts on one night, but it was wicked as far as I'm concerned...

[DeanoL]

But its not just one genre in Silver Hayes, people just call it dance out of lazyness. There's a massive difference between Nas and Rudimental, or between The Family Stone and Ben UFO. If anything, there needs to be more smaller venues, to cater for more taste. As I've already said, "dance music" is a massive term, from something like Slipmatt to something like Burial. And that's just dance music. As I've already pointed out, Silver Hayes wasn't just dance, a small percentage of it was.

[Starchild771]

The Gully/The Blues were absolutely awesome and from what my sister said the other stages were quite good too, much improved on the old dance village from 2011.

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

It had a load of flaws but it was a definite improvement on the previous east/west dance system.

I liked the balcony area of the gully and the decor of the blues was really cool. The wow stage had a great line up but was too small- although the boat parties were quite nice for an early daytime dance.

The sonic was pointless unless you were in the tent in front of the stage - which i was for a few acts so that panned out okay. Saw mount kimbie from the side and that was terrible considering they blew me away a week ago. Still an improvement on east dance.

The pussy parlure was pretty good for all the acts i saw although the introducing stage was completely overpowered and out of place.

[BlackHole2006]

Pussy Parlor was great, I was in there till the early hours of Saturday morning watching bands like Bombay Royale, as for the rest of the place I just felt the atmosphere was really flat and dodgy. Don't think I'll be camping near there again next year.

[Pot]

If it was possible, I'd just have John Peel as a dance tent all night and get rid of Silver Hayes.

[justperfect]

I enjoyed the sonic tent when it turned into the silent disco after the headliners. Stopped in there till sunrise on sunday morning

[RobDog86]

Went in there Thursday night and the combination of mud and crowds meant I only went in again to see Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who came on way late so I left again. Didn't really feel all that different to 2011, to much sound bleed and to many knobs. Needs another rethink which is a shame as they seem to be running out of ideas of what to do with the space

[Bisque]

Loved the Hospitality boat party. Sound was pretty decent if you got between the speakers & the crowd weren't your typical cock, the complete opposite of the previous night.

[geoffboycott]

I thought Silver Hayes was a significant improvement on the Dance Village of 2011.

I agree the entrance between Other and SH was a big problem and I also thought the bar wasn't big enough to accomodate the number of people, particularly on Thursday - although I suppose that was going to be the case pre Main stages opening up.

Gully and Blues were superb IMHO and really hope they are retained next year. I spent most of Sunday evening in SH, Dreadzone being the highlight, but thought it was very good indeed across all the stages in that area.

The pushing and shoving element and those just stood chatting/texting/on phone did annoy me however this wasn't confined to SH, I noticed the same behaviour across the entire festival - I do wonder why people pay to simply come and chat to their mates whilst getting off their faces, surely you could do that at home.