Suggestions for next year (not acts)

[flannel]

a) A short cut between the Rising Stage and the loos near the Musician would have been handy.

b. Stagger the band times at the Musician, Rising and Indoors by about 15mins. Several times I wanted to see all three at the same time. It would also cut down on the large gaps where those three stages finish and there's nothing but the main stage music wise.

c) Keep the silent disco going for another hour (until 2) and let more people in - I had far too much room to dance!

d) Comedy tent - increase the width of the doors or open the whole side of the tent - this worked great at Camp Bestival where they did it in the Big Top.

e) Word Tent - surely this must be the easiest tent to follow the times in the programme but they seemed to be out all weekend.

f) Get a Caribbean food stall.

g) The vocals in the Indoor stage were drowned out by the music - especially for bands like Chairlift.

h) Musician Tent - Increase the stage height a little.

i) Fringe buses seemed to work better this year. It was easy to get marooned at the Donkey though - we managed to get on but there was a massive queue and limited seats on the vintage bus. Perhaps it should run non stop in the early evening especially if the headliner is at the Donkey again next year. Or have two buses?

j) Programme - near perfect, why can't other festis do them like that? The only thing I'd change is to add the end times for the acts. After the Zutons, we thought it was all over and the compere made it sound that way but we thought we'd try Indoors and got 4 or 5 songs out of the Beautiful South (which was a nice!)

k) Add a suggestions box to the questionnaire and try to shorten it a little.

I ain't moaning, it was brill - when are the early birds out?

Edited August 22, 2009 by flannel

[David Wilson Clarke]

More showers. Had to queue for an hour. I assume this will be fixed with a return of Regents.

Keep the main stage at that hight, made photography very easy, the photo pit was a joy to be in, had a nice little slope. Heaps of room. Even the muddy puddle was easy to avoid.

Indoor stage pit not so good for photographers. Big bass bins in the way, and not much lighting from the front.

Only minor points, as was generally great.

[saintupnorth]

Keep the main stage at that hight, made photography very easy, the photo pit was a joy to be in, had a nice little slope. Heaps of room. Even the muddy puddle was easy to avoid.

[llcoolphil]

j) Programme - near perfect,

Edited August 22, 2009 by llcoolphil

[flannel]

I was mainly talking about the programme layout/size/paper.

I read the write-ups mainly to see if I might have missed anything while researching on Spotify/Myspace. e.g. sometimes a group might not sound that great but might have a good live show.

Edited August 23, 2009 by flannel

[kerplunk]

Orange tree bar - figure out a way to stop the rancid smells from beer spillage that invaded the musician tent (I assume that's where it was coming from anyway). Put some troughs under the barrels perhaps?

Some matting on the floor in the musician tent/comedy would be nice when the ground isn't dry.

[David Wilson Clarke]

Oh yeah lets design the stage and pit for the snappers ...

... but now you mention it I'd rather go back to the old layout. The moving of the crowd barrier by 10ft means that first few rows of 'non-snappers' stand on an incline rather than on the flat. When the 'cider drinkers' get excited everybody is pitched forward onto the barrier. If you make the pit any bigger you might as well call it the gold circle and charge for a wristband ... nothing personel Dave, love your snaps.

[llcoolphil]

For what it's worth I didn't even notice the pit was bigger and I was definitely close enough for Sarah Cracknell to give me the eye

[RichardH]

just fyi, the only reason the pit barrier was moved was because of the state of the ground immediately in front of the stage - it got trashed in the wet weather during the build and wasn't safe for a big crowd. If it helped you get good snaps David, then great, but don't bank on it being the same next year - saint is right, in an ideal world we want the front rows on the flat.

(oh, and the year we have a golden circle is the year I go on stage wearing nothing but blue body paint with a feather boa up my a**e....)

[saintupnorth]

(oh, and the year we have a golden circle is the year I go on stage wearing nothing but blue body paint with a feather boa up my a**e....)