Lowlights

[dirvy]

flags why?

[pennimania]

definite arsey element on the Friday eve - my missus was watching Enter Shikari (dont know why ?) and she went to take a photo and some prick behind her grabbed her camera from her hand and chucked it away ! he got a bloody nose from her for it (good girl).

The arsey element seemed to go away for saturday & sunday thankfully !

sadly there were still some left on Saturday

i was watching Ian Brown (temporarily alone as husband had gone to get drinks) and I was slapped really hard from behind and then 2 girls came jiggling up in front of me with their phones.

I am a bit slow on the uptake and it took me some time to realise I had been 'happy slapped'.

In all the years i have been going to festies such a thing has never, ever happened to me.

Other wise I enjoyed Rockness but I don't think I'll go again.

[Paul ™]

flags why?

[-pogo-]

Going out a seperate entrance to the car park and being given a pass out ticket on the Friday. The guy at the front of the exit said we could get back in this way, and this is the point of the ticket. We came back and the same guy said we can't go back and had to join the big que of new arrivals. Argued for ages about how he told us something completely different 10 mins previous and deicided he was just an arsehole.

The organisation was abolutely bog standard though. Wheather it was at the bars, sound on the stages, general entertainment, the serious lack of diversity at times on every stage accross the board and just the general feeling of the festival.

I had a decent enough time, but I realy wouldn't go back. I wish I just went to Download skint, I know it isn't everyones cup of tea, but because I couldn't realy afford the ticket and travel and spending money I thought Rock Ness would be a nice cheap alternative like it was in 2007 for me. Had a brilliant time in 2007, but this year was pretty bad.

I think Rock Ness could be a contendant for my worst fest I've been to, maybe just behind TITP 07 or Leeds 08. I'm positive there's no way I'd head back up and the only bit that I realy enjoyed was the campsite banter at night.

[macfarlanekyt]

The usa chants

[Window Licker]

Not too many complaints from me at all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself as did my mates, much better atmosphere than last year and the banter I had with many a Scot was f**kin brilliant. Epic line-up and this weekend was probably the best buzz I've had at a festival yet. Anyway here goes:

My list of Gripes and Grievances:

After Hours Entertainment: Fairly poor in my opinion. I thought the Nesstival area was going to go on until 4 in the am on Friday and Saturday so I was quite pissed off that it finished at bang on 2 am. Same shit with Sunday. Nothing on after midnight!!! That was just pure bollocks. I understand they have to keep everything in check regarding Dores and the surrounding residents and they cant obtain a later licence for any further carry on. But come on surely they can push the boat out a little further. The amount of people up for a party at the end of each night with nothing to do but get rowdy in the campsites. Sunday was the worst as the yellow campsite just descended into mayhem until about 7am, which was shit because a lot of people needed sleep to drive home safely. Especially me, I had to drive back to Dublin on 2 hours sleep after a very heavy weekend.

This is where EP is a frontrunner, they have a rave area and a reggae stage in the woods adjacent to the campsites on the way back from the arena. These both go on until 5am each morning, therefore attracting all the pill heads, party animals and crazy f**kers in once the main arena finishes. This keeps the campsites cleaner and just about quiet enough that you can get a decent kip in each night.

I spotted woods at the back of the yellow campsite at Rockness, a suitable location for some afterhours partying perhaps, far enough away from Dores to have a nice little rave I would think. Anyway just a suggestion.

Bringin in Drink: Ok so everyone tries to sneak there gargle in to any festival arena, thats not gona change, some you get in, some you don't. What pissed me off was the fact that they took your cans off you, only to find you go to bar to get a pint and what are they selling? More f**kin Cans!

Whats the point in taking cans off people if your selling the same thing inside. I thought the reason they took cans and bottles off people was so that nobody got there heads split open by the stupid scum launching them at every opportunity. The amount of people getting hit by cans was ridiculous. Yet the organisers couldnt foresee this happening??? Piss poor organisation and just dangerous. At 2manyDJs, a full can missed my girlfriends head by about 6 inches, I watched in horror as it cracked over the poor girls head in front of us and f**king exploded everywhere such was the force off impact. It knocked her spark out. Her friends started screaming, i had too pick her up and bring her over my shoulder out to the side to help her regain consciousness. f**king disgusting behaviour. What made it worse was just after it happened my girlfriend picked up the can to see it hadnt been opened at all, and I turned around to see a group of scummy c**ts giving the finger down to us half way up the hill. Hello Security? If that girl had off been hit in her temple, well its not really worth thinking about.

All in all though I didnt have a problem with the actual drink being sold or the prices. Im used to high prices for drink at Oxegen and EP. Where you pay atleast 6.00 Euro for a cup of draft (Heineken/Bulmers only, nothing else sold) or about 8.00 Euro for a spirit and mixer. So I have no complaint with the prices or what was on offer, the fact that a spirit was the same price as a beer was great. I was chuffed. Although I can see why all you folk are a bit pissed off. Rockness has obviously gotten a taste for greed and ripping punters off, it happens to every festival unfortunately. It all seemed like a bargain to me though, I come from the Republic of Rip Off and High Prices.

Finally about the Bars, they were open all night long which was great, strangely enough at EP and Oxegen they close at the ridiculous time of Half 10 so they dont have thousands of Irish propping up the bar when the main arena is about to close. However they counteract this by letting you bring in any type of plastic bottle you want once the top is off, which is grand!

Increase in Scum Element: The clear increase in Scumbags and Knackers or Neds and Schemies as you boys call them. There was definitely a larger element of these f**kers there this year. To many peoples dismay and dislike. Unfortunately as any great young festival grows this always happens, and it seems to have kicked in properly this year at Rockness, but with the primarily dance line-up you cant avoid this anymore. Its a shame as Im sure a lot of you dont bother with T anymore to avoid this shit, same as I avoid Oxegen like the plague, but it makes its way to every fest in the end. They'll always smell out and ruin any good party. I believe an increase in overall security is a must next year to counteract the grief people were clearly getting this year off the scum.

[Paul ™]

Brilliant post mate and sums up how I feel about it.

Am seriously going to consider not going to Rockness next year (for 6th in a row) unless the line up is utterly brilliant and we have assurances that most of these issues will be resolved by Jim King.

Edited June 16, 2010 by Paul ™

[MrCool]

Queues for toilets? I tought they were fine

[FannyBaws]

Increase in Scum Element: The clear increase in Scumbags and Knackers or Neds and Schemies as you boys call them. There was definitely a larger element of these f**kers there this year. To many peoples dismay and dislike. Unfortunately as any great young festival grows this always happens, and it seems to have kicked in properly this year at Rockness, but with the primarily dance line-up you cant avoid this anymore.

[rexclark]

I think the element of arseholes that were there is nothing really to do with the line up, more to do with the popularity of the festival, the more popular it gets the more arseholes it'll attract.

Certainly if you put on a more eclectic line up like last year it would help but it's business and to sell tickits they need to put on the biggest popular acts possible.

[rachbon]

i feel like rockness has went a bit backwards this year.

for a fairly new festival, it's quite sad to see it going downhill in only it's 5th year.

hopefully the issues this year were just a one off and our feedback will be taken on board.

one thing they can't change is the amount of scum who attend the festival.. this will happen as it gets more popular.

i still had a great time, but this rockness was the one i enjoyed the least out of the four i've been to.

there's too many other festivals out there to keep going to the same ones that can't seem to organise the most simple things..

i'll wait and see what jim has to say to our comments and i might give it another try next year and see how things go.. i really hope they get it back to the standard of 08 and 09 when it was at it's best.

rockness doesn't have to turn into a mini T, i'll be gutted to see it going that way..

Edited June 16, 2010 by _rachelbon

[rollergirl]

i feel like rockness has went a bit backwards this year.

for a fairly new festival, it's quite sad to see it going downhill in only it's 5th year.

hopefully the issues this year were just a one off and our feedback will be taken on board.

one thing they can't change is the amount of scum who attend the festival.. this will happen as it gets more popular.

i still had a great time, but this rockness was the one i enjoyed the least out of the four i've been to.

there's too many other festivals out there to keep going to the same ones that can't seem to organise the most simple things..

i'll wait and see what jim has to say to our comments and i might give it another try next year and see how things go.. i really hope they get it back to the standard of 08 and 09 when it was at it's best.

rockness doesn't have to turn into a mini T, i'll be gutted to see it going that way..

[zlatan07]

no one will argue that we all ahd a smashing time, so what does it say about us moaney gits that the lowlights thread is 4 pages long??!??!?

[Jim King]

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

hi paul

really glad you had a brilliant time. ive commented below your points.

regards

jim

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

  the duty has gone up so much on alcohol in last 12 months that it hard to keep the prices down any lower. draught costs us £12k per bar to put in and we just cant afford to do it everywhere. i do want more of the pubs on site as we can do this with the single font draught system which are cheaper so we'll have at least 1 more hopefully 2 more next year.

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

  im gutted about this but strongbow just wouldnt allow it. i owe you one as i said it would be there so send me your address and i'll make it up.

• Poor mainstage sound for some acts ie Blondie

  really? i thought they did a great job. we had britrow this year who are arguably the best in the uk and do nearly all the main touring bands. one problem you have to take into account is that its the band's sound engineer tweaking the system most of the time and not us. Leftfield sounded amazing and i thought the strokes did as well.

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

  i dont agree. there are always going to some acts that are part of the show and we like having them back. there were more acts this year that had never played rock ness before and a lot who hadnt played scotland for ages. strokes, leftfield, blondie, aphex twin, club 75, bloody beetroots etc etc. maybe we leave 2many and soulwax next time but i love the fact that they want to come back so much and with 5 stages we're not forcing people to see an act they have seen before. i do take the point though but its really not padding.

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

  thats not correct. the nesstival area is advertised as open to 4am as it was last year but music always stops at 2am as it did last year. sunday finished at 2am last year as well with the music finishing at 12am. we havent changed this. i agree we need to make this clearer though.

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

  i'll look into that and apologies if that was a problem. we had new company this year but i thought they did a great job in the arena.it was spotless every morning. i will take it up with the about the campsites though and thanks for pointing that out.

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

  red was only between a third and half full at the most. there was massive amounts of space. i'll publish the over head photos as soon as i get them over. front row area sold 3000 tickets which was just about the right space. a lot of people just chose not to use it. i think i agree with your point a while back and that the incentives to buy tickets early can be done differently. i want that purple campsite busy as well so we'll probably still call it front row but have it on a first come first served basis as it used to be.

  thanks for the comments.

Hopefully some improvements can be done for 2011

definitely and this is why these feedback posts are really important.

take care

jim

[blackg1000]

no one will argue that we all ahd a smashing time, so what does it say about us moaney gits that the lowlights thread is 4 pages long??!??!?

[Jim King]

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 )

nice one on easily getting your own beer in . i think we do need to rethink the cans. we've had them since day 1 but maybe time for a change. more pubs on site will help with the draught.

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

point taken. i did think we had some good stalls but agreed that maybe not enough,

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....

we didnt lie. it was the same times as last year. nesstival stays open to 4 but music stops at 2. same as last year. sunday music stops at 12. i would love to go later and im disappointed as you but going through the night is always going to be a problem for the village. maybe we need to move the campsites back a bit and have a larger campsite village with some later entertainment but we just cant go really loud.

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

i'll pass it on but we didnt turn anyone down and we didnt place any restriction on them. some of the sets were over 100db. some were 103db. most festivals are a max of 98db. a 3db difference is huge in volume terms.

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!

thats very kind of you. hopefully we'll get the extra point next year. thanks for your comments. regards jim

[FannyBaws]

Top man for taking the time to reply. Cheers...

I know it's barely been a week since this year but any idea when the early tickets will go on sale for next year? I bought mine on the last day of early-bird offer this year so not sure when they actually went on sale last year and want to get prepared. Also will there be a chance to buy early-bird VIP tickets because would love to buy VIP for next year but iirc they went on sale quite late this year which can be a pain when organising big groups.

[Jim King]

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!

[Jim King]

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!

[Jim King]

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!

[Jim King]

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

[zlatan07]

I believe the real idiots are being brought in with the addition of popular indie bands that appeal to people with a passing interest in music as well as hardcore music fans, TITP is primarily an indie/rock festival and there's a lot more tossers there. That's the way I see it anyway...

[Jim King]

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

[Jim King]

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

[Jim King]

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