Just back from Vfest 2016

[festy-dancer]

Just back from my 18th VFestival - and thoroughly enjoyed myself. All the usual gripes - 3 hours to get in to the site whilst they went through every underage persons rucksack confiscating alcohol. £3.50 for a cup of instant coffee, £7 upwards for burgers. Same old same old. But there were 2 distinct crowds this year - the Belieber pop kids, and those of us middle aged gang who still love the music and know how to have fun. Definitely more friendly, more fun, less chavvy and a lot less edgy this year. Which is all good.

I feared Travis might be a bit bland - but far from it. So many hits, big sing alongs, Fran Healy on the shoulders of the crowd: he explained to the kids how a guitar worked - it has six strings and you don't press a button! The VStreet tent was rammed for the Lightning Seeds - wall to wall hits - a great sounds - and really lively for a bunch of oldies in the crowd. Kaiser Chiefs had a small crowd (everyone else was watching Rhianna being pretentious) but gave a 1000% performance.

All Saints and Rick Astley played some classic pop with big sing alongs. You had to love the energy of DNCE and Example. Jess Glynne put on a show with a full brass section - and covered Chaka Khan's I feel for you. And Tom O'dell was a nice chillout after the Lightning seeds. Bastille were pretty good too! 

So all in all, despite the weather and the uninspiring headliners - I definitely had my moneys worth of good music. I met some fab people of all ages. I managed to get some sleep up in Green campsite - which was quite spacious. Weston Park is a beautiful setting. Roll on V2017 - whatever the line up - it will be more fun than staying at home all weekend!

 

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by festy-dancer

[phil the shrew]

Good to hear some feedback. Not been for a couple of years as 2014 when I last went was a pretty dire experience with very few people showing much interest in the line up

Was the site busier this year? Seemed less people trying to sell off tickets cheaply locally so assume they sold better numbers this year. Hope you got off site ok closure of the M6 can't have helped the traffic flow 

[LucyJR]

The site was noticeably smaller this year; the MTV stage back in it's 2010 position, and what really threw me was how close the sound stage was to the main stage; it was right behind the black carpet, rather than another 20 metres back as it used to be.

[watsonjm]

On 8/22/2016 at 11:48 AM, festy-dancer said:

Just back from my 18th VFestival - and thoroughly enjoyed myself. All the usual gripes - 3 hours to get in to the site whilst they went through every underage persons rucksack confiscating alcohol. £3.50 for a cup of instant coffee, £7 upwards for burgers. Same old same old. But there were 2 distinct crowds this year - the Belieber pop kids, and those of us middle aged gang who still love the music and know how to have fun. Definitely more friendly, more fun, less chavvy and a lot less edgy this year. Which is all good.

I feared Travis might be a bit bland - but far from it. So many hits, big sing alongs, Fran Healy on the shoulders of the crowd: he explained to the kids how a guitar worked - it has six strings and you don't press a button! The VStreet tent was rammed for the Lightning Seeds - wall to wall hits - a great sounds - and really lively for a bunch of oldies in the crowd. Kaiser Chiefs had a small crowd (everyone else was watching Rhianna being pretentious) but gave a 1000% performance.

All Saints and Rick Astley played some classic pop with big sing alongs. You had to love the energy of DNCE and Example. Jess Glynne put on a show with a full brass section - and covered Chaka Khan's I feel for you. And Tom O'dell was a nice chillout after the Lightning seeds. Bastille were pretty good too! 

So all in all, despite the weather and the uninspiring headliners - I definitely had my moneys worth of good music. I met some fab people of all ages. I managed to get some sleep up in Green campsite - which was quite spacious. Weston Park is a beautiful setting. Roll on V2017 - whatever the line up - it will be more fun than staying at home all weekend!

 

 

Cant argue with much of this and def agree RE the crowd.  Far fewer knobs than the last few years.  I went to both headliners, Rihanna was god awful and i do like her stuff before you ask.  Bieber was good for what he is, not my bag but nieces loved it.  Should have gone to KC but have seen them hundreds of times over the years.  

Adam Hills and Josh Widdicombe were both great in the comedy tent as was Bill Bailey.  

Travis was a big highlight.  As @festy-dancer i wasn't expecting much but turned out to be great.  

Another great weekend.  13 years on the bonce for me now and will be getting 2017 tickets at the end of the week.  Not just about the line and, as I've said on the other thread, getting my nieces and there friends into festivals is great for me to see.  Simply cant imagine not being in Weston park in august having been for so many years now.

[DareToDibble]

I had brilliant fun at the festival itself but the organisation if it before and after was terrible. I was made to park in Yellow car park, despite being camped in Red. This meant the walk in was a LOT longer than it should have been. Not quite so bad for me as I've done far worse at Glastonbury but the 3 girls I had with me all lost the plot and at one point I had to spend a good 20 minutes talking them out of going home. A walk that should have taken about 30 minutes ended up taking 1:30.

Then when leaving I was directed to a gate to join the queue of cars. After 30 minutes they closed this gate, told us to turn around and go to the gate on the other side. Did this and queued for another 30 minutes only for them to then do the same AGAIN and turn us back around to the gate I was originally at. I appreciate that there will always be congestion but it seemed like nobody really knew what was going on.

 

As for the festival itself, I loved it. Camped in Red, a fair distance from the Arena but had some really good people camped around us. Some of the acts were brilliant - I finally got to see Example, who I thought was brilliant.
I was dragged to Bieber over Faithless by the girls I was with... he was shocking. Mimed pretty much the entire gig. I'm pretty sure the girls I was with sang more of his songs than he did...