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Ear protection for adults at Glastonbury


bexj
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  • 1 year later...
On 5/6/2017 at 5:25 PM, bexj said:

The incredibly sad news has emerged that Inspiral Carpets drummer Craig Gill took his own life probably because of worsening tinnitus caused by his lifelong involvement in music. 

It's made me stop and think, in my mid 40's, about the longer term impact of listening to loud music and festivals.  Does anyone have any recommendations for earplugs? Or any other thoughts?

Hi @bexj, this a huge problem amongst the music scene that is not talked about enough!

I run a hearing protection campaign called All Ears. We work with venues and festivals across the UK to encourage safe listening practices and provide high-fidelity earplugs designed for music for sale.

I'd hugely recommend getting some high-fidelity earplugs. They are reusable, attach to your keys and have a music filter that allows you to hear the music clearly without damaging your ears.

The ones we provide are made by Alpine. They are affordable and fantastic. You check them out and more about our campaign through our website below!

https://allearscampaign.com/

If you or anyone else here has any more questions about the topic, feel free to reply on here or email me at john@watchthehype.com.

Cheers,
John

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1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

Hi @bexj, this a huge problem amongst the music scene that is not talked about enough!

I run a hearing protection campaign called All Ears. We work with venues and festivals across the UK to encourage safe listening practices and provide high-fidelity earplugs designed for music for sale.

I'd hugely recommend getting some high-fidelity earplugs. They are reusable, attach to your keys and have a music filter that allows you to hear the music clearly without damaging your ears.

The ones we provide are made by Alpine. They are affordable and fantastic. You check them out and more about our campaign through our website below!

https://allearscampaign.com/

If you or anyone else here has any more questions about the topic, feel free to reply on here or email me at john@watchthehype.com.

Cheers,
John

Hello John,

Just wondering;

(1) Do you, Oli, and Matt personally gain financially from punting Alpine products?

(2) Does the All Ears campaign have any recognisable charity status, or is it a private company?

(3) Surely if you are promoting Alpine products as 'the way to go' then surely you should be pointing people to those outlets where they can get the same product as on your site, but cheaper eg

https://www.chemist.co.uk/alpine-party-plug-ear-plugs.html?msclkid=c29d9251896c17067683c97bd16c021e&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+all+products&utm_content=All+products+-+testing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bing&utm_term=4575617639734522

 

 

 

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Another with tinnitus and some high frequency hearing loss in one ear. Caused by loud music and motorbike abuse. I would routinely have ringing ears and one day it didn't stop.

I generally carry some yellow foam types in a 'just in case' capacity and some Etymotics for when I know I'll need them in advance. I also have some custom medical grade silicon ones (made by ultimateear in this case, but I imagine others exist). They are my 'block as much as I can out' option. They pour silicon into your ear to take a mould of your ear canal - a process I found strangely pleasant. They are my most comfortable plugs and the only ones I would sleep in. Not sure I would wear them to a gig if I still wanted to hear a the music well.

It's all a bit after the fact, but I consider myself lucky that my tinnitus isn't worse and am trying my best to make sure it doesn't deteriorate further. 

Edited by DarrenVonBoathook
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Took earplugs for the first time last year, just the yellow foam ones for getting in closer proximity to the stages.  Have to say that it was lovely to come home without the ringing in my ears for the first time ever!

For some reason I've stopped wearing them to gigs, but this has reminded me to dig out a new pair 

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1 hour ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Hello John,

Just wondering;

(1) Do you, Oli, and Matt personally gain financially from punting Alpine products?

(2) Does the All Ears campaign have any recognisable charity status, or is it a private company?

(3) Surely if you are promoting Alpine products as 'the way to go' then surely you should be pointing people to those outlets where they can get the same product as on your site, but cheaper eg

https://www.chemist.co.uk/alpine-party-plug-ear-plugs.html?msclkid=c29d9251896c17067683c97bd16c021e&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+all+products&utm_content=All+products+-+testing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bing&utm_term=4575617639734522

 

 

 

Come on Yog. This clearly isn't a ruse to make you pay a couple of quid extra for something. The campaign they're doing is really valuable and the idea of earplugs at gigs is still scorned at by a lot of live music fans so there's still a some distance to go.

Been using some good earplugs for years and the couple of times I've forgotten them and felt the intense ringing in my ears really confirms how much I couldn't deal with that all the time and I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of volume now for the long term. I still get worried that I'm not doing enough with them in! So I'm absolutely all for John's cause and people who wanna go to gigs for as long as they can - particularly small ones - ought to think about investing in their hearing if they haven't already.

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1 hour ago, dentalplan said:

Come on Yog. This clearly isn't a ruse to make you pay a couple of quid extra for something. The campaign they're doing is really valuable and the idea of earplugs at gigs is still scorned at by a lot of live music fans so there's still a some distance to go.

Been using some good earplugs for years and the couple of times I've forgotten them and felt the intense ringing in my ears really confirms how much I couldn't deal with that all the time and I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of volume now for the long term. I still get worried that I'm not doing enough with them in! So I'm absolutely all for John's cause and people who wanna go to gigs for as long as they can - particularly small ones - ought to think about investing in their hearing if they haven't already.

Hello dentalplan,

I wasn't implying that it was a ruse to make punters pay a couple of extra quid. I merely pointed that out after an extremely quick search showed that All Ears were selling the product at more than can it can be bought for. Why pay more when you can pay less?

On top of the above I was interested to learn about the 'relationship' between All Ears and Alpine. Surely there has to be a 'relationship', otherwise why are All Ears only promoting products from one company only? Do you believe that there aren't any equally specified ear plugs out there which are much cheaper? I'm not sure that I do, to be honest. There has to be a 'tie in'. Otherwise if your overall aim is to increase the defending of ears from sound damage, then surely you'd be promoting these other products - either exclusively, or with Alpine as the top brand, or one of the top (who knows how many there are in this game).

Anyway, I smell a rat. I'd love to be proved wrong, because I'd welcome looking at things from that perspective too. Guess we'll never know. I certainly can't be fucked looking in to it. I'm not a well man, you know. 

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2 hours ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Hello dentalplan,

I wasn't implying that it was a ruse to make punters pay a couple of extra quid. I merely pointed that out after an extremely quick search showed that All Ears were selling the product at more than can it can be bought for. Why pay more when you can pay less?

On top of the above I was interested to learn about the 'relationship' between All Ears and Alpine. Surely there has to be a 'relationship', otherwise why are All Ears only promoting products from one company only? Do you believe that there aren't any equally specified ear plugs out there which are much cheaper? I'm not sure that I do, to be honest. There has to be a 'tie in'. Otherwise if your overall aim is to increase the defending of ears from sound damage, then surely you'd be promoting these other products - either exclusively, or with Alpine as the top brand, or one of the top (who knows how many there are in this game).

Anyway, I smell a rat. I'd love to be proved wrong, because I'd welcome looking at things from that perspective too. Guess we'll never know. I certainly can't be fucked looking in to it. I'm not a well man, you know. 

I dunno. Maybe there is a relationship - is that so sketchy? I imagine this campaign needs running costs so maybe they do get a little cream off the top of the cost of the earplugs.

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56 minutes ago, dentalplan said:

I dunno. Maybe there is a relationship - is that so sketchy? I imagine this campaign needs running costs so maybe they do get a little cream off the top of the cost of the earplugs.

I consider it sketchy if you don't declare an interest, if there is one. If you take it to it's cynical extreme then you could say that All Ears is merely the PR arm (or one of them) of Alpine. I don't 'get' that if All Ears's aim is to reduce sound damage to the public, then why they don't embrace a greater section of that public by offering a similar specced ear plug at a lower price.

I am not saying that there is an 'unhealthy' relationship between the two, only that there is a huge gaping open window of opportunity for that to be the case. I'm quite good at studying 'systems' of operation. Not only that, but I've seen a lot of corruption in my time. I know where to look. I could have been corrupt myself, had I so wished - I had every chance. Not only that but I spotted an area where there would be no forensic trail for KPMG or the police to follow. I'm talking the potential for millions. It may sound conceited, but I'm just kind of good at spotting weaknesses and odd goings on within systems.

As I said before, I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong in my scepticism, as I would welcome the education. I therefore asked the questions that I did in the OP. It's a chance for the 'team' from All ears to state their case, and also to publicly humiliate me in to the bargain. That's got to be a win, win, surely?

 

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18 hours ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

Hello John,

Just wondering;

(1) Do you, Oli, and Matt personally gain financially from punting Alpine products?

(2) Does the All Ears campaign have any recognisable charity status, or is it a private company?

(3) Surely if you are promoting Alpine products as 'the way to go' then surely you should be pointing people to those outlets where they can get the same product as on your site, but cheaper eg

https://www.chemist.co.uk/alpine-party-plug-ear-plugs.html?msclkid=c29d9251896c17067683c97bd16c021e&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+all+products&utm_content=All+products+-+testing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bing&utm_term=4575617639734522

 

 

 

Hi @Yoghurt on a Stick,

Matt, Oli and I are three guys running a campaign that nobody else has done before. We currently travel to clubs and festivals in order to discuss hearing health with attendees, advise and encourage general safe listening practices, and provide both free and high-fidelity earplugs. We have grafted hard to bring hearing health into conversations amongst young club and festival goers, borne from Matt getting tinnitus from loud clubs, and there being nobody discussing the issue in the scene.

In answer to your initial questions:

1) We launched this campaign in October of last year, and are yet to turn a profit that benefits us financially. All proceeds so far go directly into costs associated with the company.

2) We are a private limited company but are looking into becoming a CIC. We are not a PR arm of Alpine.

3) chemist.co.uk is evidently a huge pharmaceutical distributor which turns a profit on thousands of products. This way, they can afford to reduce their margins on a single, non-priority product for them. What's more, is that after their much larger delivery costs, the product is less than a pound cheaper than it is on our site. Finally, the RRP of the PartyPlug is £10.99, of which we need the margin in order to run our campaign. Who do you want to support? A big company purely running for profit, or a small company trying to do something completely unique that is benefiting the music scene?

In response to your criticism of our partnership with Alpine, we are currently exclusive to them for the following reasons:

  • they have a great product, that prior to us starting this campaign we all knew was our favourite
  • it is one of the cheapest universal fit high-fidelity earplugs on the market of its quality
  • when we began this campaign (only 8 months ago), we were in need of a reputable brand to help get our name off the ground. We have not received funding from Alpine.

I understand your point about providing other products. We are still in our developing stages and are looking into the best ways we can provide hearing health most effectively. I'm open to constructive feedback from you on this, not your "rat"-smelling pessimistic hole-picking of our company.

My fundamental issue with your scepticism is understanding why you decide to scrutinise a startup company that is for a good cause, directly benefiting the health of music lovers, and not even consider the fact that the big pharmaceutical distributor is undercutting other retailers?

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18 hours ago, dentalplan said:

Come on Yog. This clearly isn't a ruse to make you pay a couple of quid extra for something. The campaign they're doing is really valuable and the idea of earplugs at gigs is still scorned at by a lot of live music fans so there's still a some distance to go.

Been using some good earplugs for years and the couple of times I've forgotten them and felt the intense ringing in my ears really confirms how much I couldn't deal with that all the time and I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of volume now for the long term. I still get worried that I'm not doing enough with them in! So I'm absolutely all for John's cause and people who wanna go to gigs for as long as they can - particularly small ones - ought to think about investing in their hearing if they haven't already.

Hi @dentalplan, thanks for your support here. It really is an issue that is still scorned at by many. We're hoping to change that!

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24 minutes ago, allearscampaign said:

a campaign that nobody else has done before.

i don't believe that's true, tho there might be some unique aspects to what you're doing.

I've had plenty of "protect your ear health at noisy festivals" emails in the past, tho to be fair I can't remember seeing one for a few years at least.

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3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

i don't believe that's true, tho there might be some unique aspects to what you're doing.

I've had plenty of "protect your ear health at noisy festivals" emails in the past, tho to be fair I can't remember seeing one for a few years at least.

That comment was referring to our campaign as a whole. We initially started out in nightclubs, where, to the best of our knowledge after speaking with many music venues across the country, nobody had done what we're doing in terms of having a physical presence at these clubs to engage with the community.

I'm sure you have received many emails with regard to this topic. I believe there are very few that have actually attended festivals physically, however? If you have some examples I'd love to check them out as it would be super helpful for us!

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5 minutes ago, allearscampaign said:

I believe there are very few that have actually attended festivals physically, however? If you have some examples I'd love to check them out as it would be super helpful for us!

yeah, there have been, more than a decade ago now (of those I remember, anyway), at around the time those ear-defenders for kids became popular.

And I'm pretty sure that someone's campaign caused efestivals to publish this page in 2011:-
https://www.efestivals.co.uk/info/hearing.shtml

(I wasn't writing/editing at that time, so I don't have a memory of what brought it about)

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They should be handed out free of charge either in the bag with programs or like they hand out other things then it's up to the person if they use them.

Great thread tho has definitely made me think. 

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I've considered buying some previously but never got round to it. I normally stand towards the back nowadays anyway so don't know if there would be need for a lot of the gigs I go to but saying that I do normally have ringing in my ears after the gig.

How much does it block out, can you still hear with clarity just at a reduced volume?

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5 minutes ago, guypjfreak said:

They should be handed out free of charge either in the bag with programs or like they hand out other things then it's up to the person if they use them.

Great thread tho has definitely made me think. 

Correct me if I’m wrong but by law a loud venue must recommend their staff wear them and also make them available FOC to any attendees that request them. 

About 3 years ago I did a straw poll over a Glasto weekend and asked within venues if they had them available.

Results were mixed. 

100% of stage pits at the large outdoor stages I went to had them.

Around 50% of smaller venues had them somewhere (front barrier or sound engineer)

Around 25% had ran out but pointed me towards a steward who would know. 

Around 25% said they didn’t have any  when I pushed them towards getting me some by quoting a H&S law they refused to budge and remained saying no  

 

Personally I always use Dr Pro plugs since I got mild tinnitus from leading a samba school 20 years ago.  Thesis type reduce the overall volume but maintain the delicate sounds which allow you talk normally without removing them in between songs.

i welcome the revival of this thread and the work that all ears are doing.

Ian 

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1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

1) We launched this campaign in October of last year, and are yet to turn a profit that benefits us financially. All proceeds so far go directly into costs associated with the company.

 

This implies to me that it is, or at least was, your intention to 'turn a profit that benefits' you financially.

 

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

 

 

2) We are a private limited company but are looking into becoming a CIC. We are not a PR arm of Alpine.

 

Just wondering, why you didn't start off as a CIC, given the ease to set them up? When you say you are looking in to becoming a CIC, what do you mean? All it would take from you is to fill out Form CIC37 and send it in with a £35 fee. What are the other considerations being taken in to account?

By the way - I did not say that you were a PR arm of Alpine.

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

3) chemist.co.uk is evidently a huge pharmaceutical distributor which turns a profit on thousands of products. This way, they can afford to reduce their margins on a single, non-priority product for them. What's more, is that after their much larger delivery costs, the product is less than a pound cheaper than it is on our site. Finally, the RRP of the PartyPlug is £10.99, of which we need the margin in order to run our campaign. Who do you want to support? A big company purely running for profit, or a small company trying to do something completely unique that is benefiting the music scene?

I merely pointed out that the product(s) that you are purveying can be bought cheaper elsewhere. Surely you too should be promoting this cheaper option? Surely it would only enhance the number of people buying these items, which you say, is your main goal, so that more people protect themselves from sound damage. Not to do so is illogical.

In terms of your last statement does it matter whether a big profit making company or a small company does the work? Surely the main aim is to help protect as many members of the public as possible, as opposed to benefiting the music 'scene'. If a large outfit does this cheaper, then surely you should be guiding people to it and not to a more expensive source for the exact same product?

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

In response to your criticism of our partnership with Alpine, we are currently exclusive to them for the following reasons:

  • they have a great product, that prior to us starting this campaign we all knew was our favourite
  •  

So what if it's three people's favourite choice of product? Why was it your favourite? Are you saying that 'lots' of other companies don't have similar good products, which are possibly cheaper?

 

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

 

  • it is one of the cheapest universal fit high-fidelity earplugs on the market of its quality
  • when we began this campaign (only 8 months ago), we were in need of a reputable brand to help get our name off the ground. We have not received funding from Alpine.

 

Surely there are other 'reputable' branded products with a similar specification, but are cheaper for the consumer? Why specifically tie yourself in with Alpine alone? 

When you say that you don't receive funding from Alpine, you mean that you don't receive direct funding ie that there would be a formal named budget in your accounts to show this. However, you must be getting some back avenue funding eg in their cost to you for this product being less than I could get it off them for example?

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

Hi @Yoghurt on a Stick, I'm open to constructive feedback from you on this, not your "rat"-smelling pessimistic hole-picking of our company.

 

I don't actually care what you are open to or not, if I'm truly honest. It's you that put your head above the parapet not me. If you become a SIC you will (no should is a better word) be scrutinized just like I have done so. With cut backs etc, I'll admit that this area of compliance isn't exactly properly resourced. 

I am allowed to say what I like, and if I smell a rat, then I smell a rat.

1 hour ago, allearscampaign said:

 

My fundamental issue with your scepticism is understanding why you decide to scrutinise a startup company that is for a good cause, directly benefiting the health of music lovers, and not even consider the fact that the big pharmaceutical distributor is undercutting other retailers?

I have viewed your 'company' and not a big pharmaceutical because you came to me (via the channel of this website). I didn't go out looking for you.

 

As an aside,  I get a noises in my head too. They're like voices really saying 'Kill again, kill again, you must go out and kill again'!

 

PS - That last bit. Not real.

PPS - I do actually suffer from mild tinnitus. I do welcome the fact that your work will, hopefully, help people from experiencing this, or worse. If you are genuine and above board, and are to mushroom in growth (and therefore success in terms of your goal) , then you'll need to expect people to scrutinise your company. Personally, I don't think that you are doing yourself any favours 'tying' in with one supplier. It just doesn't sit right, and may be a questionable practice under CIC rules, although I don't actually know about that.

I suggest you keep up the good work, and don't pay too much attention to the bollocks that I can come out with. Most people here have learnt this trick already.

 

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