LOWENDER FESTIVAL LET DOWN

[Pilgrims]

We've just come back from Lowender Festival in Lake Colliford Park, Bodmin and we were shocked at how much traders were mislead over the numbers of people attending.

Many of the traders allege that they were lead to believe that anything between 500 and 1000 tickets had been told but in reality there were only 150-200 people there.

Someone in the café told us that the lady who runs it was out of pocket as she’d employed 6 extra staff and she was also allegedly told that about 800 tickets had been told.

We had travelled for 3 hours to get there, another traders selling food had bought enough food for about 400 people and had travelled from County Durham which is about 9 hours away.

Our pitch fee was £80 which in theory isn't a bad amount if there were 1000 festival goers, at least you're in with a shot of making a nice little profit. We went away with £130...

Two traders walked out half way through with one only taking £4.50.

Lowender also didn't confirm that we were attending until I phoned a week before the event. The other interesting thing is that they also don't cash traders cheques until the festival has started. When I phoned the week before, and I asked about cashing our cheque, the lady I spoke to said "oh, that's unusual"! ... even though no ones had been paid in.

Also, be aware that when you're looking at the photos on the website and on facebook etc, it might look busy but that's because at the end of the festival, they cranked up the recorded music and got the festival goers to come to the front of the stage to take photos.

No, I'm not joking ... I was there and saw it happen.

Can't fault the music, it was top class and the people we met were great but as a trader if you want to pay £80 for three days camping go ahead, just don't expect to come away with any profit.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Pilgrims

[daverich]

We've just come back from Lowender Festival in Lake Colliford Park, Bodmin and we were shocked at how much traders were mislead over the numbers of people attending.

Many of the traders allege that they were lead to believe that anything between 500 and 1000 tickets had been told but in reality there were only 150-200 people there.

Someone in the café told us that the lady who runs it was out of pocket as she’d employed 6 extra staff and she was also allegedly told that about 800 tickets had been told.

We had travelled for 3 hours to get there, another traders selling food had bought enough food for about 400 people and had travelled from County Durham which is about 9 hours away.

Our pitch fee was £80 which in theory isn't a bad amount if there were 1000 festival goers, at least you're in with a shot of making a nice little profit. We went away with £130...

Two traders walked out half way through with one only taking £4.50.

Lowender also didn't confirm that we were attending until I phoned a week before the event. The other interesting thing is that they also don't cash traders cheques until the festival has started. When I phoned the week before, and I asked about cashing our cheque, the lady I spoke to said "oh, that's unusual"! ... even though no ones had been paid in.

Also, be aware that when you're looking at the photos on the website and on facebook etc, it might look busy but that's because at the end of the festival, they cranked up the recorded music and got the festival goers to come to the front of the stage to take photos.

No, I'm not joking ... I was there and saw it happen.

Can't fault the music, it was top class and the people we met were great but as a trader if you want to pay £80 for three days camping go ahead, just don't expect to come away with any profit.

[Pilgrims]

Dave,

I appreciate the response to my posting and I'll try and reply to each of your points.

Firstly, all of the traders were given a figure at some point leading up to the event with regards to ticket sales, all between 500 and 1000. That's why you had food traders and the cafe with lots of staff and lots of stock.

We were told over the weekend that the lady running the cafe had taken on 6 extra members of staff as she had apparently been told that 800 tickets had been sold.

The tea and cake girls in the trees had over £300 of cakes with them.

Having spoken to the chap with the big BBQ, he had enough food for about 350 people and felt very let down as he had also been told that 800 tickets had been sold.

I have to say that there's no doubt in my mind that organising an event like this is a mammoth task and I take my hat off to anyone who does it, but the numbers don't add up and I just don't understand how an event can run like that with so few punters.

With regards to advertising, while I'm not local and don't know what in form this was done in, we didn't see any posters until the one we saw on the gate and from memory, apart from the one right inside, they were all either A4 or A3 size and difficult to see.

When it comes to the cheques. We're a small business, as many of the other traders were too and when you're trying to budget and follow which cheques have been cashed and which ones haven't (we've applied for over 25 events this year), it's helpful to have them paid in and confirmation of our attendance being sent out even by email.

I though it was a bit bad that I had to phone to see if we were even attending a week before the event as we didn't even have an email to say our application had been successful.

I would like to reiterate though that the music was top notch, first class - particularly Zetan Spore!

Caroline - Pilgrims.

[shivaeye]

I was also a trader at the festival. I asked Keith how many tickets had been sold prior to committing as we had a 5 hour journey. He told me it was close to 800! We all know that festival organisers exaggerate how many ticket they have sold but this was not on. Especially for food traders who purchase food on the basis of how many people are expected. I loved the festival though and would be willing to come back again if you paid a percentage of your takings rather than the pitch fee. A few smaller festivals do this who cannot confirm the numbers.

Hi.

I'm one of the organisers and I'm sorry you were mislead about numbers,- I really don't know who told you that info- are you sure it wasn't a projection?

anyway,- we're trying our best, and as far as I know no-one with authority was lying about figures,- you're welcome to contact me personally and i'll look into it.

We did have lower figures than expected,- we usually get alot of day tickets which this year didn't materialise,- we're still chewing the fat as to why.

We will be limiting the stallholder severely next year just in case, but I can tell you I was extremely surprised at how quiet it was and we really were expecting to be sold out with the amount of extra advertising we had undertaken.

Anyway,- sorry you had a unfruitful weekend.

As for the cheques thing,- I don't really understand the problem?

Kind regards

Dave Rich