contructive criticism thread

[kookenhaken]

sorry if something like this is already out there.

The program. It would be nice if paying £6 wasn't the only option. I appreciate that a map, artist features, info on the other areas is great but i'd rather have the option of easily printing that off myself at home before i go or being given an a4 sheet with times on at the gate. I managed to find the times on the website which were quite hidden away and then had to copy and paste them into a layout program so that they would all fit onto one piece of a4 paper.

I will use ATP as an example of excellent program suppliers. Images you can download at home onto your phone before you go, then on entry the same thing in handy wallet sized card format and a program full of info for no extra charge.

Perhaps an app for smartphone users could be an option in the future?

The path. As people have mentioned elsewhere, those rocks were ridiculous. please find some smaller ones next time.

The Security. I thought laser pens weren't supposed to be shone in people faces? And also since when was it a crime to roll cigarettes.

The Lost and Found. Where was it? Everyone seemed to think it was the valuables lock up. My friend found a wallet with a lot of money in it. we ended up handing it into a trustworthy looking steward. but with that kind of thing it would be nice to be able to hand it over to a site office or such.

The DJs. Some of them weren't very good at providing a party atmosphere with music. Also why was there such a big gap between bands and DJs in the big top. I poked my head in and it didn't look very fun. I understand gear has to be cleared away off the stage but the longer the gap is the less people you'll get in there.

The showers and toilets. Pretty happy with those, yeah there's going to be a queue at times, but give it a little thought and you'll be able to walk straight in at certain times.

Festival old timers. Things change and you dont have to like it but moaning about it there to people who have never been before and bumming them out isn't what it's about is it. I've been twice before in 06 and 08 and i'll admit it had changed and was different but i still had a great time.

Nothing there spoiled it for me. Nice people, atmosphere, food, drink, weather and most importantly the music was once again brilliant.

thanks to the organisers

[Yokel Again]

Most simple thing I can think of is put up a map of the camping areas at the entrance, so that people don't set up camp only to THEN look in the programme and see they are in family camping.

[MattL80]

Most simple thing I can think of is put up a map of the camping areas at the entrance, so that people don't set up camp only to THEN look in the programme and see they are in family camping.

[moonshinewilly]

The festival was great but...

+ More portaloos needed, mostly for the ladies, the urinal queues were fine.

+ Better recycling, the paper plates etc could have been recycled or composted, I hated putting most of my waste in the landfill bin all weekend.

+ £3.80 is not around £3 in my book and it's a lot for ale. There was a good selection though and I'll just take more of my own next year.

+ Paper instead of plastic cups at the bar? If they're going to be recycled that is. The plastic ones being collected weren't being reused were they?

+ More coffee sellers, the queues in the morning were epic, apparently. I'm a tea man myself.

reckon that's about it, nothing serious, thanks to everyone involved.

[sadwitch]

The festival was great but...

+ More portaloos needed, mostly for the ladies, the urinal queues were fine.

+ Better recycling, the paper plates etc could have been recycled or composted, I hated putting most of my waste in the landfill bin all weekend.

+ £3.80 is not around £3 in my book and it's a lot for ale. There was a good selection though and I'll just take more of my own next year.

+ Paper instead of plastic cups at the bar? If they're going to be recycled that is. The plastic ones being collected weren't being reused were they?

+ More coffee sellers, the queues in the morning were epic, apparently. I'm a tea man myself.

reckon that's about it, nothing serious, thanks to everyone involved.

[ijabz]

+ £3.80 is not around £3 in my book and it's a lot for ale. There was a good selection though and I'll just take more of my own next year.

[thedailygrowl]

Just one constructive criticism. Next year, when ordering stones for the path, don't be cheapskates and go for the budget quarry 'all-sizes' offcut bags, give us something less likely to break axles and ankles.

[RedRockRick]

1. Don't ever inflict anything like the new intimate Rocky Mountain Way upon future attendees. My EOTR experience (and an abiding memory of the weekend) was book-ended by the hell of trying to make my way along it with a trolley to get in and by the hell of trying to make my way along it with a trolley to get out. If you put down crap hardcore in this form, you go along it with motorised roller to bed it in. It won't bed in with people's feet. A bit of thought would have resolved this.

2. The new intimate Woods Stage. Where were the woods? I appreciate the reported rationale to justify its arrival, but it's another stage in a field. I did think sound bled badly into the Tipi and the Cinema Tent in particular: Apocalypse Now has a soundtrack featuring The Doors, not Beirut, thanks very much. Unless it's possible to add some effective screening in the form of superfast-growing yet aesthetically delightful conifers, I suppose we're at the mercy of the wind gods.

3. The Tipi has, in my view, improved as a venue year on year. Unfortunately, the expertise of whoever is behind the sound desk has not. Too many performers looking bemused at what was or was not coming through the sound system.

4. Hooray for the Garden Stage: this retained its magic, particularly in comparison with the Potato Field Stage. Please don't ever monkey around with this.

5. No real complaints with bars, food stalls, toilets or the camping site, once I'd got there. There was a higher moron factor, inevitable with the size increase.

6. Please don't mis-use the word "intimate": from this year, EOTR isn't anymore.

[clareandguy]

The Family Camping Thing.

I posted last year about this, and recently on the Capacity thread. Also went to talk to the supervisor of the main gate early on Friday morning to try and get some better info given to new arrivals. It really did irk me though - if you're going to have a Family Camping area, it only makes sense to try and make good effort to let people know where it is. It's no fun being the one getting up at 1,2,3 or later o'clock in the morning (and there's some inertia about getting out of a sleeping bag and dressed) to tell (usually young) folk that they're in Family Camping and could they keep it down as you're likely to have to be awake in a few hours. I imagine it's no fun being the one being told. I also imagine there's a fair amount of inertia about shifting your tent once you've pitched it, although a couple of tents near us did shift on Friday morning.

So - a few suggestions :

1) I'm not looking for total and enforced segregation ( some lovely women from Brighton arrived next to us on Friday, and interacted beautifully with our elder daughter despite having been grumped at somewhat by us about their mistake in pitching in Family Camping). Wouldn't it be an idea to give some guidelines as to acceptable behaviour in Family Camping - Moderate swearing (serious potty mouths on a group of lads on Sunday night when any defence of ignorance was long gone), and keep it down after midnight for instance. This sort of thing empowers people to get up and have a word rather than staying put in their tent and fuming.

2) Maps should really be made available on the website well in advance, and sent out with tickets.

3) Some effort should be put into making sure that the stewards at the gate are familiar with the layout of the site.

4) If that can't be managed, then putting up a nice big map at the main gate could help too.

5) The odd big banner saying "Family Camping" swiftly disappears when tents go up - it's the perimeter of the area that needs to be marked, and reasonably regularly.

I'd like to stress again that no-one that we spoke to either last year or this was anything other than cooperative when they found out/remembered where they were. Still basically a lovely crowd at EOTR, despite the heightened rowdiness levels.

Guy.

[QuackQuack]

1) the Rocky Road. Sheer incompetence. I would have hated to have had to push/pull a buggy along there, and can only imagine what it would have been like to be the occupant of the buggy.

2) Campsite mapping. It can really make a festival if you're camped in an area where the people around you match your 'style'.

3) Sound bleed between stages. The Big Top seems to have been the main culprit. Am I the only one to have found the sound in there a bit off? A bit muddy?

Pretty happy with the rest of it. I didn't find out over-crowded.

It might need a few more late-night stewards next year though.

[magick melvin]

The odd big banner saying "Family Camping" swiftly disappears when tents go up

Edited September 8, 2011 by magick melvin

[Yokel Again]

1) the Rocky Road. I would have hated to have had to push/pull a buggy along there, and can only imagine what it would have been like

[Maoster]

Rocky road of doom - please never again!

Clear maps showing family versus non camping areas

Few more loos and showers

[Joe_the_Great]

A cage where all the crying kids can go into.

[airwaves]

An improvement / return to what we believed used to happen that I'm sure a lot of us would like to see:-

An indication that Simon and Sophia are listening to and respond to this feedback

[acstalker]

Nobody under the age of 25 allowed to attend

[998dave]

Re: Family Camping;

Can we also ensure that the families are kept in the family camping. It wasn't much fun to have a good night, go back late to our tents that we'd purposefully put a long way away from the family camping, and get woken up by screaming and spoilt children shouting off about how they wanted to play with the yellow bungee cord while their parents ignored them and let them get on with waking the surrounding campers up.

Things work both ways!

[Jeddon]

Why was the sound in the Tipi so awful at times? It was not very good for Brakes secret set on Sunday night, and appalling for Slow Down, Molasses after that (half the instruments completely inaudible, vocals lost under guitar fuzz). A shame, because I was looking forward to both, and think I would have really enjoyed them if the sound had not been so bad.

[Nigey_boy]

It was a pity because we were enjoying Brakes but nobody could hear any vocals despite about 100 people shouting to turn the vocals up - I looked back and saw no one on the mixing desk!

[marooned]

As a steward I have to agree with the maps issue.

Even we, as the obvious. point of contact with you poor punters, didn't have one - consequently, it was only late Friday I had the answers to 'where's the Lost Property/Peacock Bar/Artist's Bar etc. etc. etc.

Surely, WE should have had one - I can only imagine that the site layout was relatively 'last minute' and, so, prevented their printing.

Another point, someone did hand me a found wallet - there was NO cash whatsoever in it, but a few cards belonging to a NZ student - this was deffo handed in to the Steward's Main Office - honest !!!!!

Finally, the rocky road WAS a fkn disgrace and the Woods Stage was (unbelievably) sat in front of the woods........

[QuackQuack]

I can only imagine that the site layout was relatively 'last minute' and, so, prevented their printing.

[langerabend]

most has been mentioned here already.

I do think the path was unacceptabel. prams and trolleys and shoes broken, crying kids, jams because our luggage was flying around, after our troley kicked over, near panic attack. also signs should be put up to find the way to the box office for us foreigners who cued and cued and then had to walk back across that godawful path to pick up tix at the box office.

the sound in the tipi was indeed sad, and there were disturbances at the garden stage (e.g. josh pearsons performance) coming from the woods stage.

all in all we did enjoy the new version of the festival. but it is not an intimate affair anymore, that's for sure and the campsite was pretty packed. the thing is, that whilst earlier eotr-festivals seemed to be making no compromise whatsoever, it seems now, that these are being made to handle the increase. no early birds for us this year. we will definately keep an eye on the new festival, hoping it is a bit smaller in size for the time being.

[MattL80]

3) Sound bleed between stages. The Big Top seems to have been the main culprit. Am I the only one to have found the sound in there a bit off? A bit muddy?

[HRL]

Like many I will definately have to agree about those huge boulders down the path leading to the campsite.

Luckily we weren't camping but I saw so many people struggling with cases etc. There seemed to be alot of abandoned trolleys in the middle of the path by the friday. I honestly don't understand the need for those stupid rocks. Bark i'm sure would have been much more appropriate? I'm guessing this is more expensive though? Would have been alot more user friendly though!

Anyway another gripe - why was there a need to change the entrance / wristband exchange? It was so much easier in previous years, and closer too! There wasn't even the 'Welcome' sign and even the Box Office looked a little sad. However we managed to figure out we could still walk down the road between the carparks / campervan / box office with ease rather than having to trek along boulders / rocks / abandoned trolleys to get back to the car to get back to the B&B. So that was lucky - wouldn't have been impressed trying to do that every morning / night!

It did seem more busy, but didn't effect me that much. However, seemed to be a larger presence of security guards, I think it was the Saturday my partner noticed some drunk guy getting carted off near the Woods Stage - not something I really wanted to see. I expect that at Latitude, but certainly not at EOTR, a little disappointing to say the least but at least this was the only incident I saw over the whole weekend.

Garden Stage was ALWAYS full of people just lounging around and talking very loudly. Some pompous guy "apparently had to re-take a year of his degree doing law because he got a 2.2" et al. I didn't come to EOTR to hear peoples life stories, but to relax and soak up the atmosphere of being at one of the nicest festivals.

I think that's really about it - the children's area seems to have been relocated, to me and my partners disappointment (no offence but last year we quietly sat and ate our goan fish curries and ale whilst listening to the peacocks squawk in that little garden area)

Oh, and I was devasted to find that I won't be able to come to EOTR next year due to my cousin, who I am not close with and couldn't really care less if I went to her wedding because unfortunately it clashes. But, we're going to try No Direction Home, as it is slightly closer, and will hopefully be just as nice as EOTR which im sure it will be!

[perfectpassion]

The Road, The Road, The Road, The Road

Arggggghhhhhhhh