Such a difference

[mfeltham]

So last year was probably my worst V festival in the 10 years I've been going and I said I wouldnt go back. The line up convinced me to buy a ticket and boy am I glad I did. One of the best yet for me! Faithless kicked ass, KOL were better than expected, so many plus points over last years dire festival. Finally they have sorted out the sound on the V stage. £3.70 a pint though!!!!!

[MOLLYJESS]

Yes the sound was definitely much better on the V stage, KOL were on top form, although the crowd were very poor - they just didn't get into it at all. Unlike for Faithless!!!!! OH MY GOD, actually brought a tear to my eye!! and Kasabian were superb too - and the singing of LSF all the way back to yellow camp was fantastic. had a great weekend.

[paulbrock]

You can't blame the crowd for KOL. They did little to nothing to get the crowd going and just played each of their songs in turn. The only reason they were headlining was because of the recent songs/success so most of the crowd wanted to hear the 3 songs they knew and Sex on Fire was practically skipped over; they could have dragged it out, got people singing, etc.

Faithless as always stole the weekend

[plectrumknight]

i thought the whole site was much better this year.

I had no queue to get in on the friday, was able to find a great spot easily on red camp and save spots for my friends, never had too wait too long for the toilets (although im a bloke there just seemed to be lots more urinals this year)

although the walk to the site seemed a bit longer i had no problem as there just seemed to be more space available.

sound on the main stage was so much better this year as well.

queues for the bars seemed to go very fast, although round by the the nissan duke they often ran out of strongbow.

the whole vibe just seemed a bit friendlier this year, although i think that was down to the increased space.

leaving the campsite this morning only took 40 minutes as well.

[mfeltham]

I think the main difference for me was the lack of chavs compared to last year (probably oasis fans). Also although I saw loads and loads of teenage girls in the campsite, I hardly saw them at all in the arena. Although this was probably because I avoided the Nissan Arena completely this year. Also the queues for the toilets were fine, and the bar the same. Big improvement on last year anyway. Now do I bother to get a ticket at 9am.........

[rjhsteel]

Highlights this year:

Kasabian: Great performance and the crowd were good. The singing back to camp was cool also.

Skunk Anansie: What a great show she put on. And that drummer went for it. Should have been higher up the bill.

Feeder: Another early starter who deserved a higher billing. Good show.

Florence: Read she was just okay live but surprised me. Good atmosphere as well.

Lowlights:

Kings of Leon: Twice i've seen them at V and both times i've been unimpressed.

The Queues: Missed some acts Sunday because it took an hour to get a beer. They gotta sort it out.

Overcrowding Sunday: Just seems that twice as many people on the sunday are there.

Camp site Vandalism: Loads of tents were raided and pissed on sunday night.

Overall the bands were on good form, but V needs to get its shit in gear next year.

[Grayburn]

What camp site was you in where tents got raided and pissed on?

Didn't see anything like that going on in Yellow.

Few of my mate were in Red this year and they aint going in there ever again due to the massive amount of idiots there.

[rjhsteel]

It was Red

[Grayburn]

It was Red

[plectrumknight]

what towers was it near? i was by 16 and didnt see/hear any problems until the monday when it was time to leave - caught someone throwing apples at people then he set fire to his tent. twat.

[ride111]

This was my first V since 2007 and I gotta say, apart from the food poisoning I had on the Sunday thanks to a dodgy Mexican wrap on the Saturday night, I had a great time. Things have definitely improved and the introduction and location of the Nissan tent was good and I like how the V Stage is now where 4Music one use to be (may have been like that last year but I think it's a good change). The sound on all four stages was really great too.

Interesting what people are saying about KOL. I watched about 20 mins of their set before I went to see the Charlatans and boy am I glad I did. KOL were so uninspiring, whereas Burgess and co really know how to rock a festival, and it was made all the better by the fact most people in there were big fans and it was in quite a small arena so the atmosphere was eclectic.

Shout out to Seastick Steve, Madness, Stereophonics, Calvin Harris, Mika and White Belt Yellow Tag who were all ace. Shaun Ryder was shall we say, interesting!

Also Yellow Campsite was great too. Red sounds shit, what with idiots parading about the place doing stupid stuff. I encountered no such stuff in Yellow and everyone was really friendly.

Oh, and Alan was funny for only the Friday night then it became extremely irritating, especially when people were shouting it having no clue what it was about.

Anyways, possibly see you peeps at V2011!

[danlen]

This year was fantastic, my first year for the full weekend.

The biggest dissapointment was KOL by a long way, the wife recorded the highlights on tv and even when they played sex on fire 75% of the crowd looked bored. I saw them in 2008 before The Verve and my opinion has not changed, great albums, awful performers.

My mate who's a fan KOL even said this afterwards and admitted we should have watched Groove Armada.

[pinkprincess]

i was in red and didnt have any problems at all!!! x

just depends where u are camped i always camp in red x

i agree with rjhsteel skunk anansie were amazing defiantly got everyone going!!!!

funnyist thing to sea sick steve picking out that girl from the crowd and her having madness on her head,lol she obviously wanted to get to the front for them lol x

Edited August 25, 2010 by pinkprincess

[paulbrock]

I like how the V Stage is now where 4Music one use to be

[markyboy101]

I had an INCREDIBLE time. The only acts (other than the 2 headliners) that I saw on the V stage were a bit of Editors, and bit of The Coral, Pixie Lott, and Weller. Thought the sound was good, the wind was doing no favours to it, as you could hears bits of the sound coming in and out of hearing range (If there are any guitarists out there, the effect was similar to having a phaser effect on your guitar, that kinda swooshing sound, like a helicopter going over), but for KOL and Kasabian, I thought the sound was below average! I was stood just in front of the sound desk both nights, so I might've suffered from being too far back to hear the stage speakers, but too far in front of the middle-of-the-field speakers. I could hear the bass, and the drums perfectly. The vocals needed to be a bit higher, and as for the guitars, I could not hear them at all. I only managed to hear them in bits and pieces during song intros, solos etc, where the main focus was the guitar. Anyone else have this problem? I thought KOL were decent, and Kasabian were beyond incredible, so it didn't devalue my weekend, should I just stand elsewhere next time?

[lmsbossy]

We only went for Saturday, due to having to fly home to Aberdeen on Sunday, and I thought the organisation really fell down. We enjoyed ourselves DESPITE the management....

1)We missed Feeder 'cos of the wait of over an hour at the gate...got there 11.30 (train & coach were great)....30 minutes of that we were at a standstill, so the gate can't even have been open....didn't get in until 12:50 just as Feeder finished.... and two girls fainted in the crush in the queue 'cos it was so hot.

2)Queues for toilets were AWFUL.....much worse than Glastonbury...in fact, I don't think I have ever had more than 2 people in front of me at Glasto,

3)and the crowd movement control was woeful....the crush as people moved through to KOL was much worse than Glasto. They really need to sort out their lay out and the placement of huge fences around the trees. MAKE THEM SMALLER, and get more toilets.....

[Carpetburn]

1. Musically one of the better recent V weekends I've had. That's a combination of (a) slightly better lineup overall (although there was the usual pop dross - Peter Andre, I ask you p)( my own determination /intuition in avoiding most of the really big crowds and try to catch a few things I hadn't seen before (Air / Imogen Heap / Plan and opportunities to see others in a small venue (Charlatans / Tricky).

2. Overcrowding - due to a family illness I had my daughter stand in as a supersub on Saturday and it really hit home to me how even more ridiculously overcrowded V became this year - you used to be able to escape the crowds at least part of the time. Now it's getting dangerous. The rat run between V Stage & 4Music was awful - you couldn't get away from the V stage sprawl even right up to the Bacardi bar. The only escape from it was up near the Union. I got worried when capacity went up to 75,000 but I heard 90,000 were there on Sunday. It bloody felt like it too. The organisation/infrastructure is really creaking now and I just hope it doesn't take a nasty accident for them to see this. Aside from the safety factor, you probably have to sacrifice seeing a band just to take a piss/get food/buy beers to avoid queues.

3. Toilets - amen to what others have said. If you're bringing 90,000 in, PUT ENOUGH TOILETS IN THERE! It was totally inedequate.

4. Litter - truly appalling this year. I will never ever eat a giant Yorkshire Pud. Seems to be the most favoured ditched meal! Never seen this so bad at other festies. Could be partly down to the clientele I'm sorry to say and partly due again to the organisers not laying on enough rubbish skips. They must find some other way to incentivising people to chuck away rubbish.

4. Entry / exit - actually found it far better this year. Breezed in both days.

5. Shuttle bus - worked like a dream getting back to Chelmsford - and did not get charged (unlike some others on here?)