Pukkelpop 2015

[DDave]

Green Day have returned to playing live. Not my bag but fits the PP bill.

[DDave]

Day tickets sold out.

Hmmm...Decisions, decisions

[TheNewUnion]

Came here to post the same thing! Not bad considering the "gaps" in the lineup eh?

Will be interesting to see if they announce a final headline act now, to get the Combi's to sell.

[johnybegood]

So strange that Friday And saturday tickets sell out at the same moment... Don't know what to think...

[DDave]

Came here to post the same thing! Not bad considering the "gaps" in the lineup eh?

Will be interesting to see if they announce a final headline act now, to get the Combi's to sell.

You'd hope so.

Still a lot of Marquee and Dance Hall names to be filled on the Friday by my reckoning. Getting these filled with decent names is more important to me than the Saturday headliner.

[DDave]

So strange that Friday And saturday tickets sell out at the same moment... Don't know what to think...

That was my first thought. Very strange.

[Dietediet]

So strange that Friday And saturday tickets sell out at the same moment... Don't know what to think...

I guess there has been a bit of meddling with the number of day and combi tickets, in order to push those first.

With combi tickets 'going fast', I doubt they're still pulling a headliner out of their hat..

[Dietediet]

Also, there goes my plan to buy a Saturday ticket closer to Summer.

[DDave]

Here's a theory.

After a bit of figure fiddling they've announced that all the day tickets for the Friday and Saturday have sold out and they'll announce a massively popular headliner which people have to buy a combination ticket to see and they'll be quids in.

[Dietediet]

More likely theory:

Despite promising us a Saturday headliner, they can't provide one. Knowing that day tickets would go shit with both Bastille and The Offspring headlining, they bump down the number of day tickets and up the number of combi tickets (which have been going great from the start).

People who buy weekend tickets are less about headliners and more about the total lineup, so they'd care less if The Offspring gets bumped up and someone like Alt-J or Foals becomes sub.

[DDave]

When you say they can't provide one, of course you mean they can't provide one that'll play for the fee the organisers are willing to pay.

[Dietediet]

When you say they can't provide one, of course you mean they can't provide one that'll play for the fee the organisers are willing to pay.

I doubt there are many festivals willing to pay millions for a festival exclusive when they can sell out without...

Not saying I'm agreeing to their way of handling stuff. This feels extra shitty considering they used 'more expensive artists' as the main reason for upping the ticket prices.

[johnybegood]

More likely theory:

Despite promising us a Saturday headliner, they can't provide one. Knowing that day tickets would go shit with both Bastille and The Offspring headlining, they bump down the number of day tickets and up the number of combi tickets (which have been going great from the start).

People who buy weekend tickets are less about headliners and more about the total lineup, so they'd care less if The Offspring gets bumped up and someone like Alt-J or Foals becomes sub.

If your theory is right and they will sell more combi tickets and less day tickets that their first intention, Thursday will be overcrowded because they sold all day-tickets so fast, so if you add initial number of day tickets + final number of combitickets, on thursday will be more people than ever...

Edited May 20, 2015 by johnybegood

[DDave]

There is that.

[Semprini]

It is strange both days sold out at the same time, but also that they didn't give any warning tickets were running low.

The theory about them reducing the number of day tickets in favour of combi's can't be correct though, unless the decision was taken before Thursday sold out. We know the capacity for each day is set at something like 65,000. Let's say the split is 40,000 combi's and 25,000 day tickets. The moment Thursday sold out, that meant they could only ever sell 40,000 combi's (or whatever the exact number is) as any more than that would put them over capacity on that day. At this point, they can't take (for arguments sake) 5,000 off each day and exchange them for combi's as all the Thursday tickets had obviously gone. Likewise, they can't take any tickets off Friday and Saturday and exchange them for combi's as this would of course allow people to attend Thursday too (putting them over capacity once all tickets have sold, which judging by their update seems likely to happen soon).

I don't believe that prior to Thursday selling out (which was about 4 months before the festival) they would have decided then to reduce day tickets for all three days in favour of more combi's. They make about 100 euros more for selling three day tickets compared to one combi so it makes no sense to change the allocation that far in advance, even if they were worried about the potential response to the headliners (or lack of). There's been times in recent years when certain days haven't sold out until quite near the start of the festival so I doubt they've paniced and shifted the numbers around in April.

[Dietediet]

Agreed that they cannot have Thursday being over capacity. But like some already said: they warned us when Thursday was going fast, they've been warning us several times for the weekend tickets. It's very odd that both sell out at the exact same moment without any warnings, especially considering the amount of criticism those days have received. Perhaps they've temporarily closed those day ticket sales to push combi tickets to selling out, then throwing thousands of day tickets back in when the lineup's complete, like so called 'unpaid reservations'? Nothing would surprise me anymore after making us wait a few extra weeks for first names, Bastille being headliner, censoring criticism on social media, ...

Anyway, considering to do Lowlands instead. Their ticket sales are going slower than usual, and it that case you usually can pick up a weekend ticket for around 100-120 euros on Ticketswap closer to the festival. And they've got a lot of the smaller gems I wanted to go to Pukkelpop for + some great names ruled out for Pukkelpop (Kendrick Lamar, The Antlers, Chemical Brothers, probably Hot Chip).

[DDave]

Sad day. The Quo are ruled out.

Status Quo, Tom Jones and the Bootleg Beatles for Lokerse

http://www.lokersefeesten.be/

Showing my age but that's turning out to be a good line up!

[DDave]

Kokayi has self confirmed.

[TheNewUnion]

Sad day. The Quo are ruled out.

Status Quo, Tom Jones and the Bootleg Beatles for Lokerse

http://www.lokersefeesten.be/

Showing my age but that's turning out to be a good line up!

A sad day indeed, Bootleg Beatles are great and the Quo are great fun live.

[Semprini]

Will be doing a bit of Pukkelpop research tomorrow at the Big Weekend as Slaves, Rudimental and Charli XCX are all playing. Circa Waves, Years and Years, Muse and Snoop Dogg are also on the bill so should be a fun day out, especially as it's only cost £7 on booking fees for my wife and I to go. The first round I get in at the bar will no doubt be much more than that!

[TheNewUnion]

How did the research go? Saw a bit on TV, Ella Eyre looked decent.

[Semprini]

Was a really good day thanks. Will definitely catch Slaves again - loads of energy and they didn't take themselves too seriously. Watched Charli XCX from a distance and she was alright. Most of the sets were only half an hour so she didn't play anything from her first album, which is the one I know. Saw the whole of Rudimental they were great. I'm pretty sure they'll clash with Rebel Sound so the fact I've now seen them means I won't have to make a choice at PKP.

Also caught whole sets from Snoop (amazing - best of the day), Jess Glyn, Years and Years (a bit too downtempo in places but good finale with 'Desire' and 'King') and Ella Eyre (came across really well live - fantastic voice and played a couple of Rudimental and Sigma tracks she featured on) and bits of Circa Waves (got the smallest crowd of the day), Fall Out Boy, Hozier and Muse. They had a Cocktail bar with DJs playing and we spent a brilliant half hour or so listening to Mistajam banging out old school garage. Most of the Radio 1 DJs played between the bands so we saw Annie Mac, Huw Stephens, Danny Howard and Pete Tong at various points during the day.

The whole thing was pretty well organised, aside from the lack of portaloos. I was alright as they had urinals but from about 1-6pm the queue was over 20 minutes, which was a pain for my wife. Weather was spot on, no issues with trouble (that I saw) and I didn't have to queue too long at the bar. It's been a while since I've done a UK festival so was nice to draw comparisons with PKP. Helps you appreciate just how good we get things in Belgium!

[Trufflehound]

Good to hear about Slaves. They are on my top-3 must-watch list for PKP so far, along with Viet Cong and FFS.

Ride were excellent in Amsterdam last night. Although they did play for nearly 2 hours, so the festival set is going to be a mightily trimmed down version of that.

[johnybegood]

A funny thing: Pukkelpop has disabled the rating section in their Facebook page, just because the last people who rated the festival, made it with just one star and negative opinions about the line-up and the way to proceed of the organization... Unbelieveable but true.

Edited May 27, 2015 by johnybegood

[TheNewUnion]

Ride were excellent in Amsterdam last night. Although they did play for nearly 2 hours, so the festival set is going to be a mightily trimmed down version of that.

Know some people who went to see Ride in Manchester, they loved it. "Gig of the year" was spoken, and they get to a lot of shows.