Summer Sundae 2012

[splinterbungee]

Seems a bit quiet on here considering its only a month away. I think the lineup looks alright this year as there's a fair few of the undercard i'm looking forward to. Only been for a day before and planning on camping this year so is anyone else going?

[seantizz]

Really quiet on here isn't it? It used to be thriving but I guess people have moved across to Facebook and Twitter now....

I'm going along - I'm sure there'll be loads others as well - in fact, I'm sure it'll be no different to previous years where walking from one side of the site to the other takes an age, not because it's Glastonbury, but because you keep bumping into people you've not seen since last year!!!!

I've been to every Summer Sundae there's been - wouldn't miss it for the world... and the line up is cracking this year.. Who are you most looking forward to seeing? I'll put a plug in for Clock Opera - saw them at Dot to Dot this year and they blew me away....

Sean

[beautifulloser]

been really surprised at how quiet it has been on here ( and yet i still check in every couple of days!) i agree i think people are using facebook more.

Got our tickets, the usual group of 7 or 8 will be there. have to say i am particularly underwhelmed by the headliners with maybe the exception of PIL but the under card is fantastic. mostly because i have spent the time checking out some of the bands i didn't know, and also the spotify play list is great! the addition of Ed Harcourt was a masterstroke for me. an "Unknown" tip from me would be Bowerbirds.

[JKFB]

I'm really happy with the lineup this year - I've printed out a list in stage time order and there are very few gaps in which to spend time in the real ale bar A few clashes but no major ones. Also, most the bands we want to see are indoor which will be a bonus if like other festivals this year it ends up being a bit wet!

Ghostpoet, Savages, Cashier No 9, Friends, Django Django, PIL and Clean Bandit are all on my Must See list.

[seantizz]

Something I have noticed about this board is the number of pinned messages - you have to scroll down and down to get to any 'unofficial' messages - and some of the pinned messages seem to have been superceded by others.... isn't there a way of the admin person behind this board to delete pinned messages no longer relevant? It might help to bring more traffic back here?

Sean

[Rob ic]

Thanks for various comments about the line up. As long as I remember we've always had positive and negative comments about quality of overall bill or choice of headliners. Some people actively dislike some of the pop acts we've booked over the last 3-4 years (and some of our younger audience think we could have booked more pop acts this year....) I personally think we have a great mix of headliners and "mid-bill" acts this year. The mid-bill/ undercard at Summer Sundae has always been strong, but IMO this year's is one of the strongest.

With two weeks to go I do find myself reminiscing about just how much "traffic" we/Summer Sundae created around this time last year through this forum and f/b with that alcohol announcement. So just to underline, if there was any doubt, that the audience can bring in their own alcohol to the festival this year.

as terms and conditions state:

Ticket holders are permitted to bring food and drink including alcohol onto site, provided it is for personal consumption

only.

no glass please.

And do remember we have some great bars with reasonably priced real ale, cocktails etc

cheers Rob

[Ed Leaf]

The publication of the real ale menu on Facebook has made me reconsider buying a stash of gin in a tin. There's your answer right there.

[mickeymouse1]

So the festival is now 3 stages lighter, and scores less bands to see over the weekend than in the past. The ticket prices have remained un-changed from last year, the line-up is rubbish to say the least and I'm not surprised to hear that the festival definitely won't be sold out this year! I don't know anyone that is actually attending this year and my large group of friends have attended religiously for over 6 years now. Needless to say none of us are attending this year! Last year we saw a definite drop in festival standards but thought it was just an aftermath from the recession or a simple glitch in concentration on the organisers behalf. But having researched how much more the festival is changing this year for the worst; they've clearly just lot the plot! There are so many more festivals out there nowadays and they're all doing a much better job than Summer Sundae seem to be able to manage! Perhaps this is the final nail in the coffin for an out of date festival which has become boring and drab. They clearly haven't spent enough money on what people expect from a festival these days? My advice; For an extra £20 go to Benicassim Festival in Northern Spain (July 2013) and see how a real festival can re-ignite your passion for live music again! Sad to let this one go after all these years!

[beautifulloser]

Wow Mickey, you didnt pull any punches there did you!

Not quite sure how your work out that it will be 3 stages lighter as i make there are 4 stages as ever?

this will be my 9th year and whilst i agree the festival has changed in that time there is still more than enough of the original vibe and great undercard of new and alternative bands to keep me interested and certainly my group of mates ( afraid we only number 6 so cant compete with your group) who are looking forward to it as much as ever.

Also the taxi home from Spain each night might put me off Benicassim.

[TinkerJohn]

Not sure what you've heard Mickey, but as beautifulloser points out - there's still 4 stages of music across all 3 days... With plenty on the undercard to fill the time up nicely!

+ loads of spoken word stuff inc. lots of comedy, kids entertainment and quirky things to add to it, so LOTS to enjoy! And the site is already looking lovely too!

Here's to a beautiful, sunny, Summer Sundae!

This will be '12 for 12' for me.

[Orly]

Having attended 7 of the last 8 Summer Sundaes and enjoyed this year as much as ever, I feel that Mickey has been a bit harsh. We buy our tickets in January every year before the line-up is announced as we know there wilI always be some new music to surprise us. Friends who have come with us over the years always want to come again. One year, one of our group even came straight there for the Sunday from a flight back from Ethiopia.

There are also a few other points that clinch it for us:

Real ale, and not overpriced.

The indoor stage and DMH - what's not to like about comfy seats and loads of clean toilets and a place to shelter from the rain? Is this a Unique Selling Point? I haven't been to enough other festivals to know if any others have a hall like DMH.

The ever-friendly and cheerful staff who make us feel like we're home again...and the friendly punters.

The compact and bijou nature of the site where you can nip to the toilet, grab a beer and catch a couple of acts in the various locations, all in the space of a few minutes.

It never becomes a swamp even if it's rained a lot...and most years, it does at some point. Other festivals are great when dry and warm but become a bit of an ordeal when the weather is inclement.

The suburban location which allows for our annual Saturday morning trip into Leicester via the lovely New Walk, and the local hotels within walking distance for those who can't bear to camp.

The closeness to our hometown of Sheffield which means we can fit the festival into a weekend.

My only criticisms of this year were that the two tents were too close together, leading to a lot of sound bleed even though the acts didn't necessarily overlap. I know you were trying to make it easy for us so that we only had to walk a few yards to the next band! It might also have been difficult to get to the real ale bar if the festival was at capacity. The sound was a bit dodgy at times too; some of this was technical, I think, but sometimes the sound in The Watering Hole wasn't loud enough to drown out the chatter from the bar.

We went to Electric Picnic last year and enjoyed a great line-up and some great memories, but the corporate feel of the festival with bag searches and only the sponsor's expensive lager available made it less than perfect. Haven't been to any of the big UK festivals in a few years as the novelty of worrying about getting your stuff nicked, seeing teenagers off their heads, and the delightful practice of throwing bottles of wee somehow leave me cold these days...must be my age...

So thanks to Rob and team, the DMH staff, volunteers and everyone who worked so hard to make it a great experience for us again in 2012.

[Rob ic]

Thanks Orly and co.

Mickey, not sure about your maths. We were only one stage "lighter" this year, whilst we had an extended programme in Big Top and De Montfort Hall. Over the last two years we found that whilst a 1200 cap Rising Stage was impressive it was very expensive considering it was not used half the day. As for number of acts: We had a similar number of acts to most other years.

Hence the experiment with the Big Top/Into the Wild and Watering Hole. The idea was that the areas would be connected in a row and encourage people to stick around the area and go from one stage to another with the flip/flopping bill. We had to change the site plan 10 days before the event due to a large area of standing water exactly where the Big Top stage was supposed to be. Hence the 3 areas (Big Top, real ale bar and Watering Hole stage) being more bunched up. It looked and felt fine on the Wednesday when the structures were up, however with the two stages closer together and the bar taking up most of the low slung tent there was more sound bleed and bar chat (vs the Watering Hole stage) We've had a lot of positive comments about the seats and floor in the Big Top.

It has to be said that Leicester City Council no longer subsidise the festival to the extent they did 4 - 5 years ago. We do still receive some support, but it's been myself and my fellow directors that have picked up the sizeable deficit for the festival over the last two years. Pick any recent year, with the exception of 2010, and it's posted a six figure deficit. It is depressing reading emails like Mickey's.

It's been a tough year for festivals. Ask Vince Power (Benicassim, Hop Farm etc) or the individuals behind events like Nova, Wychwood, Larmer Tree, Rhythm Festival, No Direction Home/End of The Road, Green Man OR anybody involved in catering, production or other.

I have the feeling that next year's festival calendar is going to look a lot different to this years.

Rob

[little car]

It seemed that a few bands were down on members at the festival - Y Niwl were down to three members, Clock Opera's keyboard player was missing, and Friends were also a man down. Strange. Thought they still delivered decent sets though, particularly Y Niwl and Friends.

Re. the number of stages, were there not four full music stages last year plus the comedy tent and the phrased and confused stage? I make that two more than this year, three if you don't count the watering hole.

Re. bag searches - we also had these at Summer Sundae - not nice having a security guard squeezing your food as you go in to see if something (what exactly?) was in there. Other gripes if the organisers are interested - lack of decent lager on offer, no times provided for the comedy acts, horrible smell around the main stage - easily fixed for next year I would have thought. Poor sound indoors might not be as easily fixed.

Overall, I thought it was decent value for the price of the ticket, and I hope it returns next year.

[Rob ic]

in reply to Little Car

Number of stages: it became apparent over the last two years that the Rising Stage was empty most of the day. Audience did not stick around between bands and that meant that bands played to less people. We did feel that 5 stages was one too many for our size of audience (5000 +/- per day) Festivals significantly larger than ours tend to work OK with 3-4 music stages.

re number of stages: Phrased and Confused used the bandstand last year. That was placed in the garden this year.

The layout of the Village would have been different if he had not had all the rain in July and early August. This left the site with two large areas of standing water; one in the village and one at the bottom of the main arena. In the village the water was where the Big Top stage was supposed to be, so to deal with this we brought the fence in and then had to squeeze the bar and Watering Hole all closer together. The mainstage managed to cover most of the other "pond" which was caused by bad drainage. We covered the area with sand, but that did not help with the smell! Sorry, first complaint I have read of the smell.

Decent lager: don't drink it much myself. Please advise what you consider a decent lager. I thought Becks was OK?

[kerplunk]

Re the smell - yes there was a noticeable pong down at the front of the mainstage which I put it down to all the beer being spilt/thrown in that area and the moist conditions meaning it never dried out..

I put it down to beer because it was the same rancid smell that pervaded in the Watering Hole, which seems to happen every year - Orange Tree never seem to use drip-troughs placed under the barrels to catch the spills like I see at other similar real ale bars, so it goes on the ground and then in the warmth it rapidly goes off. That's my theory anyway - my expertise is more on the other side of the bar

Edited September 5, 2012 by kerplunk

[little car]

In the village the water was where the Big Top stage was supposed to be, so to deal with this we brought the fence in and then had to squeeze the bar and Watering Hole all closer together. The mainstage managed to cover most of the other "pond" which was caused by bad drainage. We covered the area with sand, but that did not help with the smell! Sorry, first complaint I have read of the smell.

Decent lager: don't drink it much myself. Please advise what you consider a decent lager. I thought Becks was OK?