afterview

This years V2000 festival at Hylands Park in Chelmsford was a mix of great band performances and lots of corporate control.

There were three main stages and a dance tent, with some superb acts on each of the stages, but a rather disappointing array of DJ's in the dance tent. It had a really 'concert' feel about it on the Saturday, with big acts and little festival atmosphere. The lack of effort made to decorate the site or any of the arenas reduced the festival feel of things. Also, the organisation of the site was poor: it felt as though the markets had been plonked together with little forethought. There was a lot there including a mass of food and clothes stalls and the odd alternative such as the homeopathic clinic, the Krishna's and the God Tent. But is was all bundled together in such a way that it had no real form or sense of organic design. Instead it seemed that all had to be fitted around the horrendous corporate stalls that dominated the site.

The 'corporateness' of it all was epitomised by the organisers insistence on no drinks being brought into the site. This was not however, a ban on glass bottles or the like, which would be understandable, it was a ban on all bottles - people had sealed plastic bottles of water and soft drinks removed from them by security at the gate. Once in the arena, people could then buy drinks, but their choice was limited to sales of corporate cola and water at £1.50 each on ALL the stalls. We could only locate one working drinking water tap to refill bottles on the site - a most frustrating state of affairs. Punters were then bombarded by a mass of huge advertising posters around the site and even TV adverts on the main stage big screens between acts. Then there were also all the big corporate stalls scattered around the site. The main advantage of all this was that there was free food! You could have a free breakfast at the corporate cereal stand, along with some pretty cool music. At lunchtime you could feast on as much quiche, sausage rolls, crisps and chips as you wanted, at the corporate salad dressing stand and finally you could put all that bad karma behind you with a free dinner in the Krishna tent.

Having considered the negative sides, it must be recognised that things were done to give people a good time aside from the great bands. There was a big space full of bouncy castles, slides and games for people to have fun on, although the queues were long. Hugh Jart was also there with their massive boards for people to decorate and there was even a big trapeze show. These were definitely designed for adults though, and although some people were brave enough to bring kids to this event it hasn't been designed for them.

V2000 was blessed with some lovely weather which was a joy, and as people got into the festival groove, so Sunday became more relaxed into a festival vibe. On a basic note, the toilets were reasonably clean, though the lack of sinks to wash at was unforgivable, and the queues could be long. Black matting had been placed in front of all the stages and on large walkways in case of rain and consequent mud. In the lack of rain, these ended up being great slides to take a trip on!

Overall, it was the bands that made v2000 great. Some superb performances from Underworld, Groove Armada, Bloodhound Gang and the like made the up-for-it crowd jump about. But, you are unlikely to really have any particular 'festival moments' here. If more effort was put towards the all round festival experience and less importance placed on corporate hype, this could be a great little event.

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