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Well - we went and overall we had a really great time, we think that the Stafford crowd is great and that V Stafford is a really friendly festival. We saw some brilliant acts - all we can say is BECK WOW - what a performance - what a touch of class - those puppets - thank you, thank you, thank you to all those folk who trouped off to see Girls Aloud - this effectively meant that we got a great spot to see both Beck and Radiohead. We knew Radiohead would be awesome and thought Beck would be good - but Beck put on a performance rather than just doing his songs - it had to be the performance of the festival - if you didn't see it you really missed out on a festival classic - class in a glass!
You can see more of our experiences of V by taking a look at our V Festival Image Gallery
There has been so much criticism of this festival and the organisers being labelled as greedy, there was even a write up to this effect on the BBC website and to be honest we do think that charging £10 a pop for the laminated band lists is a big rip off, tickets for this gig don't come cheap and we do feel strongly that this should be part of the ticket price - come on V, we know you make plenty profit here it won't hurt you to include this in the package.
But is it a big commercial rip off for fans? Well to be honest it most definitely is a commercial festival - but aren't most festivals? Is it more of a rip off than other events? To be perfectly honest we don't think so, yes, the tickets are expensive but you get a lot of bands for your money and the V festival in Stafford is a really friendly affair with both punters and staff up for a laugh, there's a really nice atmosphere at Stafford. Food and drink is expensive but we didn't think it was any more expensive than at other festivals and yeah they do push the booze - well so do the other festivals. We honestly think that labelling it as a rip off is going a bit far, okay it's no Glastonbury but then neither is any other festival, think that Glastonbury's crown is quite safe as it's on a completely different level to any other festival. As long as you understand this there should be few problems at V - overall it's a bloody nice festival and a lot of the criticism levelled at the organisers about being excessively greedy doesn't seem fair, we don't know of any promoter who isn't greedy for the biggest profit they can get and singling out V isn't really fair, there was a good line up and whilst the organisation left a bit to be desired we enjoyed it! And so did thousands of other people! Strikes us that they must be doing something right then! As festivals go it wasn't a Glastonbury - but it was a darned nice, friendly and relatively safe festival.
Oh dear - this could be called the festival of the queue and queue again - in fact if you like standing in rotten weather and missing your favourite bands then V is the festival for you! Just look at the queues for the cashpoint - this just went on and on and on... all through the festival -now we know that folk ought to take enough cash with them but given the propensity for theft at these festivals you can be forgiven for not wanting to take all your cash and keep it on you - so cash points are a necessity - surely there could have been more? It's an expensive festival so it's probably easy to misjudge the amount of cash you're going to need. Please make it better for next year V - some folk say they had to queue for 4 hours - that really would spoil your day.
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Now just look at the queues for the toilets - OH MY GOD - did they comply with the 'Purple Guide'? Well they are going to tell us they did aren't they? that being the case and if they actually did then clearly the 'purple guide' has got it wrong - there simply were not enough toilets at this festival. This of course, led to the really off putting sight of 'the festival pissers'...V festival really is the tops for this - at no other festival have we seen so many blatant festival pissers. Not only that but look how close these toilets are to the food area.OH MY GOD ..Did you buy your food there? and are you alive to tell the tale?? In fairness to V organisers we found the toilets to be clean and most of the time they had bog roll - which was good - so well done for that - but there just weren't enough as is apparent by the number of people just pissing around the fences - this in full view of security - so have I got it wrong then? Are there no environmental or health and safety issues about people pissing and crapping wherever? There was plenty of room around the arena's for far more toilet facilities so come on V - you can do much better than this - next time please, please increase the toilet facilities - but good on you for keeping them clean - not an easy thing to do at a festival so top marks for that aspect. Are you one of the 'festival pissers' - if so let us know - was it because there were too few toilets? or are you just a knob?
Security, this was effectively done by Rock Steady - although there were other firms there Rock Steady maintained overall control and responsibility. There were shed loads of staff on duty throughout so absolutely no shortage of stewarding and security on site. This was probably the friendliest festival for stewarding and security - the staff were great overall - up for a laugh, professional and seemingly level headed - just what you want from your festival stewarding and security staff. Well done guys and gals we think that you were great and you did a good job, there were quite a few organisational issues but that wasn't your fault - you did the best you could in quite often difficult circumstances. It's really not an easy task to do security and stewarding at a festival where quite often you can't do right for doing wrong - it's a real tough job and we think you did good.
Overall though the organisation at this V festival left a lot to be desired, particularly for the first (and very, very wet) day. We arrived at the site at about 10-45 and tried to get into the arena - we were not allowed and yet it appeared that campers were allowed in. It later transpired that campers were allowed in but only to the village - signage and information V - we need to know this and it would save an awful lot of aggravation and annoyance. We then traversed around a tad and found other queues to join - one was quite short - great we thought so joined it. Of course it didn't open and we all waited very patiently but it still didn't open - naturally enough there was no explanation as to why. Festival organisers this is a really aggravating aspect of being at a festival - we won't mind queuing quite so much if you just let us know why - it's not a lot to ask and could make a world of difference to your customers.
We kept asking the stewards but they just didn't know what or why the delay - as the magic 12 o clock deadline came and went people were beginning to feel a tad annoyed - and to be honest you can't really blame them can you? stewards were telling us that the other entrance was open and actively encouraging us to move to the other one so after about half an hour of nothing happening we took the difficult decision to leave this queue and find another entrance as we had been told it would be open. But you've guessed it - was it open - was it fuck - we just left a queue where we were at the front to find ourselves in a mega queue that just went on and on - with of course no explanation given. People were there with their day tickets and really worried that they would get to the front (hopefully in time for the headline act at 10pm ish!!) only to be turned away for not being weekend ticket holders - come on V INFORMATION - I mean how hard can it be to just let folk know what's happening eh? £120 per ticket isn't peanuts - it's a fairly big investment to attend your event - on top of that we are going to have to spend loads more at your event - we do deserve a little better than this - don't we? Because of this queue we missed the first band - so annoying because we got there in plenty of time. Later in the day we were told that it was the festival safety officer who had caused the delay and had refused to allow the doors to open, that being the case then to be honest the bands should have started later shouldn't they? And while we're on the subject why not just tell the waiting crowd what the problem is? Honestly - it really would have saved so much misunderstanding and aggravation - everyone would just have tutted and thought 'bloody health and safety' and would have been much more chilled out about it.
Now the searches - guys, guys, guys - we know this has to be done - we know why and we know how important it is - it's a necessary evil and I guess you don't like doing it either. For the most part searches were very cursory - this in itself begs the question - is it worth it? what are you achieving?
To be really honest with you were I that way inclined I could get anything I wanted into that venue - I certainly wasn't searched as I didn't have a bag - but I had loads of pockets that could have had anything in them - I don't take things I'm not supposed to (I'm just like that - a compliant little madam me!!) but have yourself a little bijou flick around some of the festival forums and check out what some folk are prepared to do and what lengths they are prepared to go to in order to get stuff in - scary eh? I don't want to sound cynical because I don't want to be unfair to you guys - BUT - you know it does feel that there is such a strong element of disallowing us to take in some very important stuff just so we have to spend a lot of money and bolster your profits - what other reason can there be for the restriction on water? some of us on restricted diets should be able to take in our own food you know - there is so much crap for sale and never anything that I can eat - so I have to take a big risk every time I go - I either starve or I have to risk eating stuff I know I shouldn't and run the risk of making myself ill - do you ever think about how this might affect your customers? If organisers are going to stick to the food thing could you not make sure there are caterers there who can cater for restricted diets? such an easy thing to do for such a big organisation surely? It really would make a big difference; there must be lots of other people out there who also have a restricted diet.
Do you know what? - I actually saw a few glass bottles in the arena! this is the only festival I've been to that I've actually seen that in the last few years - how on earth were glass bottles getting through? I know that on occasion folk were getting straight through into the arena with no searching whatsoever - why was this? It can't have been a staffing issue - there appeared to be plenty of staff on duty - are they being deployed efficiently and effectively? I'm sure it's not the case but you know it does feel a little as though the searches are a means of making sure we don't bring anything into the festival that can be found on sale at big prices inside the arena. Of course what happens with such restrictions is that ultimately people find ways and means - so it becomes an 'us and them' situation - such a shame because we're quite a good lot on the whole and are quite well behaved and obedient when the reason for the restrictions is properly explained to us. Glass bottle restrictions are obvious but many folk have no idea why bottle tops are removed from plastic bottles - why not explain that it's a safety measure because bottles without tops when empty will collapse neatly.
Why did you stop a poor family from taking in their chairs on such an awful day? these collapsible chairs were on sale both inside and outside the arena - okay in fairness you seem to have stopped Millets from selling them inside the arena at some stage on Saturday but there were already a number of folk who had them inside the arena - it did seem unfair to a family with young children as it was you guys who screwed up and let the items be sold inside the arena. You need to remember that the children with their parents are your future customers - you want to keep them and encourage them to come back don't you?
And why oh why didn't you provide a reasonable amount of seating areas for your customers? The bad weather was predictable - do you really think it reasonable to expect folk to stand up for 12 hours? We ordinary punters don't have access to the swish VIP areas but that doesn't mean that we don't have some basic needs that you really ought to be meeting - it's not a lot to ask - they do it at Glastonbury so why can't you manage it?
Which brings me neatly to the fact that there was no attempt to try and put something down in key areas to alleviate the mud, now that's not quite fair to you - I did witness a bit of a kafuffle when stewards made a huge deal out of making us punters move away from a kind of dumper truck - so I stood and watched - you know what - with great theatrical aplomb this dumper type truck deposited all of three tablespoons worth of stones on a big patch of mud!!!????? what was that all about eh?? Oh how I wish I'd been quick enough with the camera! Still - I have to say - it did make me chuckle a lot.
Now - in keeping with most events V you did get this a bit wrong. We're a bit wise to this one now and don't stay on site - but the taxi's in the pick up point were still having problems and it did feel as though a five year old could have organised this aspect of the festival better - have you ever heard about one way systems and traffic marshals?
Sadly three young people died in a car crash on the way home from V, we don't know the cause of this yet but you know queuing for hours to get out of a venue that had so few places to rest isn't helpful. Health and Safety - you should be on to this one - a festival where people have been plied with booze and where drugs are freely available (I saw more blatant drug use at this festival than at any other! amyl nitrate seemed very popular) a bit of safety information being plugged to folk would be a good touch along with more places to rest and fewer queues - you really do need to minimise the risks where and when you can. This isn't easy to do but we think some effort needs to be expended here for next year.
You know what - there were a lot of aggravating factors and things that could have been done better - but even so I like the V festival, this is my second visit and I will be going again next year. I would also recommend that other people give the V festival a whirl, it feels safe and it's not overcrowded - although that front of stage area does need looking at V!
It's a very friendly festival, I'd go as far as to say that it's friendlier than Glastonbury - and that's real nice.
So although I don't think that the festival was bad, quite the contrary I think they did quite a good job overall - there were a number of key areas that could be improved significantly and would so make a huge difference to the whole event - in fact V I think that if you were to address some of these issues you could have an absolutely brilliant festival on your hands. So come on V - have a look at some of these issues - we think you've been unfairly slated in the press so show us you listen and make next years event the tops
The Safe Concerts Image Gallery
