Boomtown Chapter 1: The Gathering

[mr flow]

43 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

there was quite a lot of stories about people being double charged/ extra items added to their wristbands, would prefer to have a screen with a scanner that we can tap rather than someone holding a phone screen you can’t see

Yeah I think this is great feedback. I asked to double check how much each time i got anything, just to make sure. A screen would certainly have helped, or a policy that they show you how much they are going to take off before they do it would definitely be the best way forward.

[Pinhead]

For anyone working as an Oxfam Steward: what was it like for you this year in terms of Oxfam and the shifts in general?

[Skip997]

18 minutes ago, mr flow said:

Yeah I think this is great feedback. I asked to double check how much each time i got anything, just to make sure. A screen would certainly have helped, or a policy that they show you how much they are going to take off before they do it would definitely be the best way forward.

Quote

However, we are uncomfortable with the ethics and some elements of implementation of current RFID schemes available and are not going RFID cashless at this year’s Shambala.

Shambala doesn't trust RFID schemes and I trust Shambala.

[mr flow]

6 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Shambala doesn't trust RFID schemes and I trust Shambala.

I don’t see what benefit the bar staff would get by adding stuff on to the order you make. It’s not like they get any commission on sales etc, and the festival aren’t going to make up orders to make more money. Boomtown studied the cashless option for almost 10 years, and waited until they were believed the technology was ready to be implemented. I thought it was a huge success. No queues at bars, no walking around with money in my pocket that I could lose, and a slicker service all round. 

[Neil]

4 hours ago, 1986 said:

Thoughts from a first timer.

Heat: obviously not the fault of the fest but played a massive part in the ease of getting round or deciding where to go. I’ve been to plenty of muddy as eff festivals but this is the first one where the weather has made things that much harder for the opposite reason. If the country is looking to be going further in this direction I guess it’s something all festivals will have to consider more.

Drinks: Couldn’t believe how shit the selection was. Counted 3 bars that will pull you a cold pint of something, Buxton and Red Stripe’s own, and The Shamrock in Old Town if you wanted a Guinness. Every ‘Bar’ had the same thing, warm cans of Red Stripe, or 330ml Cans of Buxton for 6 quid. And when I say warm I mean it, they had never seen a fridge. You were just as good bringing a sun cooked one from your tent. 
 

Food: Varied, some great things and some where they were cutting corners to maximise profit. Seemed weird how hit and miss it was considering I recognised a lot of places from Glastonbury and everything I had there was great. Can’t figure that out. 
 

Drugs: No judgement here, and I knew Boomtown’s rep, but it’s worth noting how blatant it really is there. Didn’t see any bad behaviour or anything. But one story that had me and my partner laughing in our tents was a lad in the next camp shouting across the whole campsite ‘Is anyone selling ket!?’ And we heard in the distance ‘I am!’ Then he just went over and picked up. We were offered everything by passing dealers like it was fruit and veg. Also in a completely cashless festival for some reason there were cash machines? Place is a dealers dream. 
 

Cashless fest: Didn’t see the value of it at first but to their credit it was completely smooth and easy. Heard a couple stories of people being charged twice or whatever but that sounds like user error rather than the system being an issue. 
 

Sets/world: So cool, takes what Glasto does with it and makes them look tame. The heat making wondering round so hard was a shame cus I’m sure there was loads more to find. Found trying to suss out the stories way too hard but that’s probably cus I’m dumb. Actors were pretty impenetrable at times too, if you were trying to get involved in something but doing it in the wrong order it felt like you were basically out the loop. Again though maybe that’s a me problem.
 

Music/stages: Put me in the camp of people wanting more time with a line up before going, found it hard to know what to go for most of the time and I knew very little of what was on offer. And how heavily DJ oriented it was got a bit old for me after 5 days. Did see some fantastic sets though. Stages were insanely good, Origin was something else and Grand Central was not only amazing to look at but the bowl shape meant a great view from wherever you stood. Zero shade in the day time made watching sets there more tiring but it was worth it.

Overall I’d say it’s a brilliant and unique festival but I don’t know if I need to go again. 

nice write-up, thanks.

[1986]

Anyone else have any trouble trying to leave last night? We were walking back to the car in the dark and barely found a sign or steward anywhere. Once we were in the car we and other cars were driving in the dark aimlessly for ages. I knew other drivers were lost when they were clearly following me and I had no fucking idea what I was doing 😁

[Old_Johno]

20 minutes ago, mr flow said:

I don’t see what benefit the bar staff would get by adding stuff on to the order you make. It’s not like they get any commission on sales etc, and the festival aren’t going to make up orders to make more money. Boomtown studied the cashless option for almost 10 years, and waited until they were believed the technology was ready to be implemented. I thought it was a huge success. No queues at bars, no walking around with money in my pocket that I could lose, and a slicker service all round. 

All the stands pay 20% back to Boomtown, on top of their pitch fee so sticking extra stuff on would counteract that 

[Leyrulion]

36 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

For anyone working as an Oxfam Steward: what was it like for you this year in terms of Oxfam and the shifts in general?

All shifts were downtown, so no campsite shifts. shifts seemed to all be crossing points, roaming, area entrances, stage pits 

More of a mixture of shift patterns then other fests I've done. (8am-4pm, 9am-5pm, 10am-6pm, 12pm-8pm, 8pm-4am, and others) we somehow managed to have our latest shift end at 8pm so had every single night at the fest which was a result, we were very lucky.

There are some horrific shifts, the steward we saw doing 8 hours in the back of the hardcore techno tent particularly sticks in my mind, I'm sure that's a specific form of torture. 

However you can get in amongst it, see everything have a lot of fun, meal tickets were trader vouchers and two crew bars were decent. Was good to have an official after-party when it ended at midnight. And access to easier water points and more toilets was great.

[Pinhead]

Official after party - thats a new one there. Remember doing Woodlands there a few years back for one shift and spent the 8 hours loading one k-hole after another on the back of the medical trucks. Then did the main intersite road through downtown with loads of stuck lorries in the mud... Good tat after tho on Monday - picked up enough food for the week!

[Pinhead]

That was the year of the "March of the Quenchas"... Basically Mon AM saw loads of abandoned Quencha pop up tents roaming free around the circular road in downtown driven by a wind that had picked up. Was surreal.

[Leyrulion]

6 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Official after party - thats a new one there. Remember doing Woodlands there a few years back for one shift and spent the 8 hours loading one k-hole after another on the back of the medical trucks. Then did the main intersite road through downtown with loads of stuck lorries in the mud... Good tat after tho on Monday - picked up enough food for the week!

Security on the door and everything. 

 

One thing I forgot is that's we found out the week of that there was no alcohol limit for volunteers, which was and even bigger bonus.

[Pinhead]

Bit like Bearded now then - good stuff. Where was the Oxfield this year?

[gfa]

When can we expect super early birds on sale ? next few days or in like September or something. guess on the price too?

[mr flow]

1 hour ago, gfa said:

When can we expect super early birds on sale ? next few days or in like September or something. guess on the price too?

Usually November from memory 

[mr flow]

2 hours ago, Old_Johno said:

All the stands pay 20% back to Boomtown, on top of their pitch fee so sticking extra stuff on would counteract that 

But people are complaining about being charged for stuff at the bar that they didn’t pay for. The bars are run by Freeman so the bar staff would have no benefit to themselves if they stick extra items on

[Old_Johno]

44 minutes ago, mr flow said:

But people are complaining about being charged for stuff at the bar that they didn’t pay for. The bars are run by Freeman so the bar staff would have no benefit to themselves if they stick extra items on

It makes sense for food traders because they’re mostly independent. 
 

bar staff could be doing it to take drinks at the end of their shift, think someone said they’re not allowed to actually do anything at the festival though? They camp offsite and get escorted on for their shift only 

[Metal Monkey]

2 hours ago, 1986 said:

Anyone else have any trouble trying to leave last night? We were walking back to the car in the dark and barely found a sign or steward anywhere. Once we were in the car we and other cars were driving in the dark aimlessly for ages. I knew other drivers were lost when they were clearly following me and I had no fucking idea what I was doing 😁

I saw a few cars drive almost into South gate thinking it was the way out! 
Took a while to find the pedestrian gate to the car park as the main one was closed. I’d parked my car closer earlier in the day, by a lamppost, which was off! Whole car park was pitch black. Then driving through dust barely able to see the road. I expect there’s something on the website about them not wanting you to leave Sunday night, it wasn’t easy. 

[1986]

10 minutes ago, Metal Monkey said:

I saw a few cars drive almost into South gate thinking it was the way out! 
Took a while to find the pedestrian gate to the car park as the main one was closed. I’d parked my car closer earlier in the day, by a lamppost, which was off! Whole car park was pitch black. Then driving through dust barely able to see the road. I expect there’s something on the website about them not wanting you to leave Sunday night, it wasn’t easy. 

Yeah the car park was spooky dark wasn’t it? And like you say dusty as hell. 
If they didn’t want people to leave Sunday night making it death defying to do so is a bad way to go about it. 

[joeltg]

What a fucking party. 

The End. 

[Sku]

14 hours ago, mr flow said:

But people are complaining about being charged for stuff at the bar that they didn’t pay for. The bars are run by Freeman so the bar staff would have no benefit to themselves if they stick extra items on

The bar staff in Metropolis were handing out extra free drinks on Sunday evening, or just not charging people. The first time we were not charged, with the guy saying "Don't worry about it". We went back a second time, this time we were charged, but given double our double our drinks order. We pointed this out, and were told "have a good evening".

Posts online seem to suggest many of the staff are pretty unhappy with the way Freeman's had treated them, similar stories to 2019 are already emerging. Not sure if what happened at Metropolis was some kind of unusual protest, to start giving away the stock.

I'm not at all sure why the staff would charge people extra for items they didn't receive, other than making a genuine mistake, or just not giving a fuck. It certainly doesn't seem to be a money making scheme since the staff won't see any benefit, as you said. But certainly if staff are not treated well, they might not carry out their roles properly, which is more likely to be the issue.

[Sawdusty surfer]

@Sku

Interesting. Sunday night at Metropolis got four Redsripes when I ordered two and he just smiled when I told him. I made sure that the same member of staff served me later. Same happened. 

Overall, despite the naysayers and the doom mongers, BT was absolutely brilliant and I do like the new layout, especially the village hubs rather than Whistler's Green which used to end up unvisited by many ticket holders. 

Hopefully BT is now secure and will run and run. 

For anyone who may think otherwise, you're never too old for Boomtown! 

[barcelonista1899]

I had forgotten about the the bar staff controversy last time. The Freeman's  compound was in the festival's main walls, but there was a manned desk over the entrance, so maybe there is truth in that the workers were not allowed to leave. Disgusting if that's the case. 

 

[Sku]

Hate to be the one posting this here:

https://www.iq-mag.net/2022/08/live-nation-acquires-stake-in-boomtown-fair/

Seems the cat is out the bag now.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Sku

[gfa]

2 minutes ago, Sku said:

Hate to be the one posting this here:

https://www.iq-mag.net/2022/08/live-nation-acquires-stake-in-boomtown-fair/

Seems the cat is out the bag now.

Crazy that - didn't realise last time it ran it was 77k too, thats only behind Glasto, R&L, Download and Creamfields right? Not surprising they have had such a big drop off in headliner size (for fair reason)

[Sku]

1 minute ago, gfa said:

Crazy that - didn't realise last time it ran it was 77k too, thats only behind Glasto, R&L, Download and Creamfields right? Not surprising they have had such a big drop off in headliner size (for fair reason)

That is factually incorrect. They had a license for it to be that large, but they have never used that full amount.

However, I can vouch that the part of the article about Live Nation taking a stake is true, as it can be verified on Companies House.