Lowlights

[Paul ™]

So yet another Rockness has passed, had a brilliant time but a a couple of minor issues to point out

• £3.30 for a can of Strongbow!! And why could all the bars not have draught available?

• No other cider available, why no Suffolk Cider in the real ale tent?

• Poor mainstage sound for some acts ie Blondie

• Too many repeated acts over the weekend, padding out the line up the easy way it seems

• No music after 2am on Friday/Saturday and 12am Sunday despite advertised as 4am on Fri/Sat and 2am Sun

• Severe lack of bins in the campsite, this morning the rubbish was the worst I have ever seen it at Rockness

• Front row campsite hardly used, so the Yellow/Red campsites were all crammed in

Hopefully some improvements can be done for 2011

[Memory Man]

good thread, just to be clear i had an amazing time at rock ness and its one of the best festivals i have been to but i do think there are some small changes that could make it better.

Real ale more available and yes draught on all bars is just such a basic thing. Had to go back to howards end every time i wanted a drink just avoid the horrid cans of crap beer. Not really a massive gripe as the site is not large so it was never a long walk but still getting more draught is definitely needed. (altho getting your own beers in wasnt too hard )

The food - Aside from the delightful argyll offerings in the arena and robert wiseman i thought the general standard of food available was really poor. not seen as bad food provision at a festival for a while. Burger van after burger van is just not cool and i thought alternative UK festivals had begun to move away from these offerings now. admittedly you dont have to buy from them but there was not a lot of choice especially early / breakfast when arena not open

As above, not lying about the curfew would be helpful..... 12 midnight on sunday to close was FAR too early our group all wanted a dance after the strokes and for it to just be over without proper warning was well disappointing. i see aeroplane went off early as well, was hoping to catch the last 10 mins. I appreciate why curfews need to exist, locals / residents etc but 2am is quite early for a Friday and Sat at a festival these days and on Sunday for a bit it just felt like Leeds Festival all over again when the bands stop and there is nothing to do late night....

The sound for friendly fires was exceedingly quiet and spoiled their set for me.

Whilst i have written more in this section than i have in highlights i can confidently say there were more highlights than lowlights and with a few small changes rockness could be creeping from an 8/10 festival towards a 9 or 10/10 festival in my opinon!

[Vteich]

A great festival, but what's with all the idiots (must've been hundreds of them) throwing bottles and beer all over other people and even the bands? What are these people thinking? Or is this a common thing at every UK festival?

[dave!]

The amount of time it took to get a drink was unreal! Must have been waiting for around 30 minutes after vitalic.

Grandmaster flash was pretty disappointing - waaaay over demanding too!

Apart from that I cant really think of anything!

[campsieid]

brilliant festival overall however would have to have a slight complain about the lack of toilet locations in the campsite

also feel the front row camping didnt work as it simply left a huge area of campsite practically empty

[thedementedpoppet]

BEER SERVICE was my specialist subject due to working behind the bar at Howards end for what felt like a week!!

Why was draft not available at all tents... I suspect time (pull a pint takes a minute or two, pull a four pack of beer, seconds)

Why £3.30 a can, festival prices paul (and you know this!!) however the mark ups on cans, carparking and timetable thingys were appalling

Why no more speciality beers, the bloody things were not selling and when they were they were pouring really poorly and they took longer to pour

Why no other ciders? no idea, but cant we get the cider bus up next time (or as a treat for belladrum)

Why did it take so long to get a pint? poor organisation, staffing levels were lower in busier tents.

CAMPING STUFF

I did not find the camping too bad at all, but the lack of toilet facilities and bins was really bad. AND I agree with paul the amount of rubbish and wastage was soo sad, it does make you think about the state of our society where this is acceptable.

CARPARK

If you are going to charge £15 for parking make sure you provide security who have walkie talkies, some form of track maintenance (even straw or track way) and a handy 4x4 to help out. Its not just a way of making money!!

[Disco_Fudge]

wasn't just beer being thrown around. some dick threw a cup of piss during soulwax that landed down my back. killed the mood somewhat. thought it was just t-in the park this happened

[Kowalski]

Had a great weekend, saw some excellent acts and thoroughly enjoyed myself, but it's not above criticism. For me it was a step backwards from last year's excellent festival.

• Too many repeated acts across the weekend

• Everything closing two hours earlier each night compared to last year

• Serious shortage of bins in the campsite

• Not enough toilets in the yellow campsite

• Drambuie Bar was an absolute shambles at times, very poorly run:

• -dishing out tokens on the Friday saying they were showing the opening match, only to find out that they weren't

• -operating a 1-out-0-in policy for at least two of matches

• -not serving drinks during some of the matches

• -no pass outs, so nobody could get a drink when they stopped serving, or go to the toilet

• Being falsely promised a new set by 2manyDJs

• No information about line-up changes

[Poleski]

Crystal Castles set.

The fact the Carling and Rizla stages were still being built.

The constantly changing sound quality on main stage.

[gordong]

Getting id'd for Strongbow tent.

Seeing the aftermath of a guy being bottled in yellow campsite

[Guy Rope Tripper]

the weather on sunday morning/afternoon was a bit of a downer but nothing the organisers could have done there

the bars seemed to be mobbed all day saturday & sunday, maybe more staff needed there? a minor issue with a brilliant weekend

[Nuffsaid]

My 1st Rockness and it was bloody brilliant! .....will add to this thread though - mainly for constructive criticism.

Main Stage Sound was poor on occasions and the piss taking out of the Crystal Castle’s singer was a bit beyond a joke, mic on, mic off , sound low, sound high etc. Seem to get it right for most of the major bands though.

The throwing of cans – it happens at all festivals, but the cans at other festivals are the sneaked through cans not sold at the bars – maybe an idea NOT to add to the risk by allowing cans to be sold – even go further and get stewards to confiscate any cans they see being drunk –would mitigate the issue (but it will never go away I’m afraid) - so sneak a can in – you have to use a cup to pour it into etc, etc or risk losing it by a steward..

Portable BBQ areas – a joke! , part of the festival craic is to get together on the mornings before music starts have a few beers and a BBQ with your mates , being forced to move an already fired up BBQ to the beer mat size BBQ areas was a really silly idea IMO. We left tonnes of meat and buns and two portable BBQ’s because we couldn’t be arsed with the silliness of it all – had to make do with crisp sarnies lol.

Not many of the rockier bands were on in the Clash tent , mainly the main arena , seeing someone like Alabama 3 play to a handful of people instead of a more intimate crowd in a smaller tent would have been better – difficult to balance things I know and always good in hindsight etc etc.

Could have done with a ‘who’s on when’ list (like the Strongbow tent , but on all the tents) , passed the Howards way pub a few times and no one was on so carried on , maybe would have stayed and had a beer if something was shown outside times etc.

My tenpenneth – had a really great time this year though.

[pipper]

£3 charge to withdraw money from the cash machines. A f*cking disgrace.

Aberdeen angus stalls trying to pass off terrible burgers as angus late on Sunday night to pissed people, hoping they wouldn't notice.

The clear increase of fannys from previous years.

[pinkartstudent]

No Suffolk cider, only nasty strongbow cans at a stupid price. I doubt it would have bothered me so much if it was draught.

Hadouken changing times, perhaps it was announced but i didnt see anything anywhere stating the time change

The throwing of chips and drink in the crowd was a bit annoying this year.

Drambuie bar being understaffed at busy times.

[rollergirl]

Agree with most of the comments already made.....front row camping was a bit of a joke however it worked fine for me as the campsite was very spacious.

Biggest lowlight for me was losing my voice before I even got to the festie and having to spend the weekend croaking at everyone

[scott_b_]

Cash bars where a joke. Took a good 10-15 minutes on Sunday to get two 'pints' (Two cans tipped into a pint cup) resulting in missing the first two songs of The Strokes.

Sound was pish at times at the main stage. Dunno if it was the weather or because it was in a valley but you couldn't hear the vocals for Plan B, Blondie and Ian Brown for some songs. (Speaking of Ian Brown, that was the 7th time i've seen him and that was a bit of a dissappointment)

Lack of pissers in the campsite. One set in Red which was a bit of a trek away from us.

Everything finishing at 2am Fri/Sat and 12am Sunday. Throwing some shapes at the Arcadia Afterburner for the music to just suddenly stop was a shame.

Other than that though, what a barry weekend

[Ali1874]

Arena closing so early (on Sunday especially)

Lack of toilets in the campsite

Poor sounds for Crystal Castles and Friendly Fires

Too many burger bars and not much else

Confusion about Hadouken and Rob da Bank changing times. No signs anywhere but at least the stewards knew what was happening. First thought was that Bloody Beetroots had pulled out!

No pints

Still none of this put a dampner on an amazing weekend.

[RMcCole]

Times changing with no way of really finding out. Missed Hadouken

The TBA slot above Soulwax not being adequately filled.

Pricks throwing cans into the crowd. I don't mind being panned with a near empty plastic cup of bevvy but a can? That's an arsehole thing to do!

Having to go home

[Cosmo Kramer]

Lack of bins everywhere. This was annoying but I still managed to not litter the whole weekend so people could have tried a bit harder to find a bin than just chucking it. It's very sad to see the state of the place. I wonder how long the clean-up operation takes?

Bad sound on the main stage for some acts.

Not enough toilets in the campsites , although they were still much cleaner than I've seen at TITP.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Cosmo Kramer

[rachbon]

the queues for the toilets and bars were ridiculous this year. looks like more tickets might have been sold, as the arena seemed a lot busier. if there are more people, they need more facilities!

lack of communication between festival bosses and the staff. we had to spend 10 minutes argueing with the staff at the wristband bit as they refused to believe our early bird tickets allowed us access to front row, why couldn't the staff be told that all tickets with "EB" on them were to be given front row wristbands if these were requested? had to keep repeating myself to some cheeky supervisor that our tickets WERE front row, and telling him to radio jim king as he was the one who told us this, he finally gave us the wristbands.

a lot of arseholes there this year. not very nice when i'm standing on my own with a group of around 6 boys (can't really call them men) being nasty and abusive towards me for no reason. :angry: obviously nothing can be done to prevent this, it will only get worse as the festival gets more popular.

everything finishing at 12 on the saturday and sunday, this was not advertised on the rockness website. if this is down to being unable to get a licence or whatever, then fair enough, but this should have been on the website before the festival so that we at least knew about it.

the sound in the clash tent when kevin bridges was on. you'd need to be in the front row to actually hear it properly.

The food - Aside from the delightful argyll offerings in the arena and robert wiseman i thought the general standard of food available was really poor. not seen as bad food provision at a festival for a while. Burger van after burger van is just not cool and i thought alternative UK festivals had begun to move away from these offerings now. admittedly you dont have to buy from them but there was not a lot of choice especially early / breakfast when arena not open

Edited June 15, 2010 by _rachelbon

[FannyBaws]

Pretty much everything has been covered but i'll still list:

The food - I prefer the selection at TITP to be honest. The Last time I was at TITP (2008) I had lovely pasties one night, mexican the following night and a nice vegetable stir fry the next. At Rockness due to the choice on offer I barely ate anything. I had noodles & chicken from the chinese type place and chunky chips & gravy over the course of the weekend and never ate anything else due to not really being a fan of greasy burger vans. Would like more of a food selection next year.

The sound in the clash tent for Kevin Bridges was being drowned out by Danananakroyd (iirc) on the main stage. Did they really need THAT much sound to play to an empty main stage while Kevin Bridges was rammed and you had to strain to hear it at points?

No music after 2am on Fri/Sat or 12 on Sunday despite being advertised as 4am/4am/2am. I didn't really need the music to go on much later on the Fri/Sat, 3am would be nice but on Sunday there needed to be at least one thing on until 2am for one last hurrah to end the weekend and bask in the last of the festival love IMO.

No updated lists outside of tent entrances to give time changes or those last few "TBA" slots (such as Soulwax tent headliner).

Soulwax's set, I've saw them numerous times and always had a good one but I never managed to get into it. I dunno if it was becuase it was the Sunday but the crowd seemed a bit subdued having come from Chase & Status. Maybe C&S was just too lively that I came in over-amped up for Soulwax. Stayed for about 4 songs or so anyway and went back to catch last of Chase & Status.

EDIT: None of this spoiled what was an amazing weekend though, roll on next year!

Edited June 15, 2010 by FannyBaws

[rollergirl]

another lowlight for me was watching security taking down tents yesterday morning.......now I appreciate that this has to be done and realise that the amount of tents left must have been a pain but there was one guy in particular in front row who was wondering about dismantiling tents.......we were just finishing packing so i wasn't paying close attention to him but I did notice him at a mates tent. he didn't look inside the tent to see if there was anyone in it but just took out the pegs and collapsed the tent and walked off. Now it took us a while to realise that said mate was infact inside, sleeping soundly unaware that the tent was on top off him! Doesn't bare thinking about what could have happened..........suffocation or even worse getting run over by one of those buggy things that were zipping about all weekend!

[rachbon]

another lowlight for me was watching security taking down tents yesterday morning.......now I appreciate that this has to be done and realise that the amount of tents left must have been a pain but there was one guy in particular in front row who was wondering about dismantiling tents.......we were just finishing packing so i wasn't paying close attention to him but I did notice him at a mates tent. he didn't look inside the tent to see if there was anyone in it but just took out the pegs and collapsed the tent and walked off. Now it took us a while to realise that said mate was infact inside, sleeping soundly unaware that the tent was on top off him! Doesn't bare thinking about what could have happened..........suffocation or even worse getting run over by one of those buggy things that were zipping about all weekend!

[rollergirl]

who's tent was it?

that is shocking..

[rachbon]

James, friendly campsite guy. I hate to think what would have happened if we hadn't checked as we were the last of the group to leave so no one else would have been there to notice he was still inside!