Boomtown Fair 2017

[LMK]

Glad I'm going tomorrow after seeing all the queues today

[eFestivals]

1 hour ago, LMK said:

Glad I'm going tomorrow after seeing all the queues today

am hearing it's bad, tho it was at this time last year even without the mud.

[pilton digger]

There are a few muddy patches but not much. Its ok. Can't speak for ped gates but it seems to be moving. Campervans was easier than usual.

 

All good. Sun is out.

[eFestivals]

56 minutes ago, pilton digger said:

All good.

is it? The missus has read on facebook that the scanners are down, and I've just had a message that the two tickets we'd been allocated has turned out to be one ticket at the gate: sean's not happy.

 

[Sawdusty surfer]

Turns out that a crew ticket has materialised with my name on it. I am going to the ball!

(First time there. After so many years of facilitating mates' entry into various festivals it is finally pay back time..... My turn to be the ligger  ) 

[kingbadger]

Been in coach gate queue from 3pm and reckon still got another 2 hours minimum. Absolute farce. Omnishambles.

[Miesh]

1 hour ago, Sawdusty Surfer said:

Turns out that a crew ticket has materialised with my name on it. I am going to the ball!

(First time there. After so many years of facilitating mates' entry into various festivals it is finally pay back time..... My turn to be the ligger  ) 

Fantastic news. Have an awesome time.

Hope everyone else gets in OK. I came on here to look after reading tales of woe elsewhere.

[V7SaxonStreet]

Hi guys sounds like it's been at absolute nightmare for a lot of peeps today. One question though I am staying at Hilltop Boomtique so does that mean I will enter a different entrance tommorow? Maybe missing some of the que problems?

[manateemike]

We arrived about 12 at the family camper van lane. Whilst being held for the gate to open we were comprehensively searched by security. Had the dog sniff the car and enter the caravan for a good sniff. It was more a case of being a captive audience than being targeted for us. 

We finally got in just before 1.30 I think. We started in the queue on the road about 1130 so couple of hours all totalled. Not bad. In fact brilliant compared to the stories on Facebook we've been told about. 

Heres to Toots and a few beers sat on the slope tomorrow. 

[willutalk]

Can anyone upload a photo of the order of events for tomorrow? It'd be great appreciated! The photos uploaded a few pages ago aren't clear enough to read. Can only make Friday and Sunday so really want to make it count!

[pouxin]

Friday main stages for y'all

 

 

[pouxin]

Saturday 

 

[Jesuisfred224]

Anyone can still get me a weekend ticket for any reason or know someone who's leaving and will slip it off message me 

[Ishara]

First time and last time. Took 8 hours to get onsite, during which time we saw one steward who appeared to be capable of organising traffic; the rest were completely ineffective- probably because nobody had briefed them. I mean, rain at a uk festival is hardly a rare event.

i met someone who'd been to a festival in Belgium with more punters and the same weather; the site was all tracked before punters arrived, there were 60 (yes 60) gates and no problems.

By the time we got in to Boomtown? we just wanted to go home and we weren't alone in that.We did perk up seeing all the amazing sets and stages, but there was also the predictable walking miles chasing after fun - only this time in mud and in a vibe that wasn't my kind of thing.

i liked whistlers green, but I found the comment of someone doing workshops there interesting. She said every other festival they booked up, but at Boomtown she reckoned a lot of punters came just to get wasted. Frankly after the trauma of getting in, I don't blame them, but it did seem ironically like a less creative, less interesting bunch than at, say SGP.

We were bored in the end and came back early. Managed the trip offsite in 10 mins, rather than 8 hours - admittedly traffic were still useless and we had to negotiate our exit with the oncoming tanker driver ourselves whilst they sat idly by, but still an improvement. hope it's as quick for everyone tomorrow - they're scanning everyone out (wtf), so that should slow everything down nicely.

I'll guess it's some kind of health and safety measure, which is a laugh after what we saw coming in. Even apart from that, we were blocked in by a van all weekend; with traffic control like this I'm not surprised 80 cars were burnt out in the car park last year.

all in all, not worth the effort imho. There are so many other festivals, I can't believe there isn't something as creative minus the hopeless organisation.

 

 

[mr flow]

I had a great time. Granted I didn't get there till Friday so avoided the queuing, but  I didn't think the site was in that bad order when we arrived when you consider the weather before the gates opened. To put it into perspective, I pushed a 3 month old in a buggy all weekend.

 

My only minor gripe was not having a big act up against Cypress Hill which caused a bit of a bottle beck getting away from Lions Den on Friday night, but it was raining so suppose conditions were a bit slippy. I also left yesterday, and they went to scan me out but a simple "I'm not coming back in" ensured they didn't do the unnecessary scan. No way will they scan everyone out again this morning.

 

[Tommy101]

I had a great weekend. The way in on Thursday was terrible as I'm sure we're all aware. I spend 5 hours in the queue, fortunately surrounded by patient and friendly people so I made friends nice and early. 

Once we were in I didn't look back. We had a great time, saw some great acts and loved the immersive side of things. Old town and wild west were particular favourites.

My only small gripe, which I'm sure is due to restrictions, was that it seemed to finish so suddenly at 3/4 with a lot of people still having another few hours in them. That said I feel a lot less broken than I normally do after Glastonbury so perhaps it did me a favour.

I'll definitely go next year, and trust with the amount of coverage it got that they will sort out the entry system.

Top acts for me were Toots, Cypress Hill, Frank Turner and Gentlemen's dub club. Also particularly enjoyed the sets by My Nu Leng and Black Sun Empire.

[jammy2211]

Was stood queueing from 1:30pm - 10pm on the Thursday (after joining the coaches queue at 9am...). Really hard to 'get over' an experience like that and made me lose a lot of respect for the festival before I was even in. Is there really no contingency for the bar code scanners going down?

Once in however, I thought it was great. A lot of unique ideas going about the festival, enjoyed the different areas with different themes and different ways to get your mindset into them. Saw some great acts (most of which I'd never heard of before the festival), met some great people and enjoyed the lack of corporate sponsers / Bang-hai type theme.

For me a great one off, glad I did it but dont think I'll head back. Will always recommend it to others.

[PretentiousThinkpiece]

we found an abandoned crate of stella and sat on hay bales getting drunk  instead of queuing all thursday, had a great time

Edited August 15, 2017 by PretentiousThinkpiece

[frostypaw]

Back and very broken from a rather harder work Boomtown... that was rough. My feet feel totally pulverised and I've done something awful to my left big toe, but reality is starting to creep back in.

Seemed like it took a day longer than usual for the vibe to really settle after the unfortunate queue chaos and mud-shock - was just incredible how many people had turned up in their nice white trainers considering the obvious weather issues, but by Saturday almost everything was completely solid again and all the colour came back  

The scanners failing on the public gates is a curse and blessing. After that happened all new supershiny scanners that worked FAR FAR better than anything we've had in the past 5 years turned up - it may have been enough of a whoopsie to kick The Ticket Sellers into action and could well mean it'll all run more smoothly next year. The new bar folk seemed to run things better too but no Black Rat to be found anywhere sadly.

Friends who played through the game/story stuff said it was great fun and had a variety of mad experiences, seems it could end several ways - still failed to do it myself though! All the BHI stuff was very slick with the ads and videos all over. Great step up from last time

The Jolly Dodger was missed  apparently it had rot. Seems there might be big changes next year with full on redevelopment of Mayfair by Banghai Industries, the Lion's Den having an entire new crew and threats of Oldtown getting bulldozered.

The next chapter title has been revealed as "The Machine Cannot Be Stopped" 16th - 19th Aug

[Guy Incognito]

2 hours ago, frostypaw said:

The Jolly Dodger was missed  apparently it had rot. Seems there might be big changes next year with full on redevelopment of Mayfair by Banghai Industries, the Lion's Den having an entire new crew and threats of Oldtown getting bulldozered.

that would be a massive shame, where did you hear that? Didnt go this year but went in 2013, 2014 and 2016 and I definitely noticed how Boomtown is changing in a negative way for me. Far more electronic music than there used to be, which I'm not apposed to at all generally, but last year there was too much drum and bass and lots of similar sounding stuff being played everywhere all hours of theday. It definitely feels like that is the focus now to me.

Oldtown is one of the best areas. I much prefer everything at the top of the hill to the stuff in the bowl. I understand the need to develop and change but it's a shame that Boomtown has already shifted its focus from its roots in gypsy, ska etc. Also I hate to be that guy, but I think I preferred it when it was around 30,000 people.

Edited August 15, 2017 by rhg_99

[qndrm]

It was my first time at BT and thought the festival was amazing. I've been to many festivals before but nothing on this scale and production.

My only gripe was the crowd, the excessive amount of kids was a little overwhelming for me, maybe because we camped between distrkt 5 and China town which was teeming with 18 year olds. Other campsites up near old town seemed to have a older crowd, from what I saw. Which I would of preferred and the fact I hardly met any fellow northerners was a little irritating.

We did though, have an incident on the Saturday night which left one of our friends in tears, we had just got back to our camp at around 3am and were chilling out, chatting etc. A lad, who we didn't know, from one of the tents just close to us came back in a wrecked, but raging state was looking for his weed, phone and speaker. It turns out that it had gone missing and someone had nicked it according to him. So in his raging state accused us of stealing his stuff, one of our female friends felt uneasy and retreated into our tent while this guy was shouting and basically flying off the handle with anyone he set eyes on. He ended up coming up to our tent, convinced we had stolen his stuff and proceeded to enter our tent and grab some tobacco from our friend that had retreated previously, thinking she had his stuff. At this point we had to basically pull this guy out, luckly there were 4 of us there, our female friend was distraught and ran off shouting for security while we still had this nutter threatening to batter us if we didn't return his stuff. Needless to say we didn't have his stuff. 

At this point security came running over, tried to calm the guy down but because he basically laid a hand on our friend, security decided to evict him, to our relief. None of us felt safe after the way he was acting. He was literally psychotic. 

So big up security for dealing with that c***. 

All in alll though amazing festival. 

Edited August 15, 2017 by qndrm

[Tommy101]

I was expecting more 18 year olds from what I've heard. There were a few about granted but I thought we'd be overwhelmed. Maybe it helped that I was up in Wild West camping. 

Sorry to hear about that negative experience @qndrm, I experienced nothing but love and new friends. Glad it was resolved and didn't ruin the festival. 

With regards to Old Town (@rhg_99) - we had an amazing chat with a 'civil engineer/developer' type bloke in a hard hat and a clip board talking about the redevelopment whilst loads of people were spiraling around protesting with placards etc. on Saturday evening. Personally I think the resistance will mean it gets saved, and I honestly hope so too as I think it was my favourite area to mill about in.

We saw this crazy bloke who looked a bit like the animal guy out of police academy there on Sunday lunchtimeish use a load of loop pedals to make some fun music but his patter with the crowd was incredible. He kept on doing things like throwing a banana into the crowd and shouting boomerang at people until it got returned until it descended into throwing an obliterated banana into the face of a passer by. He stopped for a snack break that involved filling a sombrero with doritos, putting on a crowd members head and filling his hands with salsa and getting him to offer it to the crowd. There were also tequila breaks, pinatas filled with sweets and baggies of what looked like coke (probably talk or something). It was all rather crazy and simultaneously the best and worst thing I saw all weekend. Very entertaining though. Hmm, upon reading my own words perhaps it is better experienced than read about.

[FestivalUnicorn]

13 hours ago, Tommy101 said:

I was expecting more 18 year olds from what I've heard. There were a few about granted but I thought we'd be overwhelmed. Maybe it helped that I was up in Wild West camping. 

With regards to Old Town (@rhg_99) - we had an amazing chat with a 'civil engineer/developer' type bloke in a hard hat and a clip board talking about the redevelopment whilst loads of people were spiraling around protesting with placards etc. on Saturday evening. Personally I think the resistance will mean it gets saved, and I honestly hope so too as I think it was my favourite area to mill about in.

 

I have camped in the Wild West for the last 3 years - absolutely love it! Right by the car park, Zooloo showers (I just did PAYG once for £5 on the Sunday, freshen up,) nicely situated between Downtown and Uptown, with the woods nearby, lockers handy to get to and a lovely vibe in the campsite.

I absolutely adore Boomtown, it's my favourite festival by a mile (and I've been to a good few, used to be a big Glastonbury goer, then SGP for a while) and I'd be gutted if the festival lost the Old Town, it's the mix that makes it special- I spend equal amounts of time between the Uptown areas and then usually Downtown later on into the night. I'm hopeful the organisers know what they've got though and that if they do change up the Old Town, it'd only be to refresh it with something else not too dissimilar in terms of being more theatrical with the little venues to explore and interactive stuff. Can't beat The Shamrock for a bit of craic! 

Roll on next year, cannot come soon enough..with no Glastonbury and no SGP, tickets are going to fly out, in spite of the queue issues this year, I only hope it doesn't change the vibe too much.

[Tommy101]

10 hours ago, FestivalUnicorn said:

 

I have camped in the Wild West for the last 3 years - absolutely love it! Right by the car park, Zooloo showers (I just did PAYG once for £5 on the Sunday, freshen up,) nicely situated between Downtown and Uptown, with the woods nearby, lockers handy to get to and a lovely vibe in the campsite.

I absolutely adore Boomtown, it's my favourite festival by a mile (and I've been to a good few, used to be a big Glastonbury goer, then SGP for a while) and I'd be gutted if the festival lost the Old Town, it's the mix that makes it special- I spend equal amounts of time between the Uptown areas and then usually Downtown later on into the night. I'm hopeful the organisers know what they've got though and that if they do change up the Old Town, it'd only be to refresh it with something else not too dissimilar in terms of being more theatrical with the little venues to explore and interactive stuff. Can't beat The Shamrock for a bit of craic! 

Roll on next year, cannot come soon enough..with no Glastonbury and no SGP, tickets are going to fly out, in spite of the queue issues this year, I only hope it doesn't change the vibe too much.

From my very limited experience you seem right on the money. To be honest I didn't use any of those amenities but thought the location itself was fantastic. We were right up by the Rave Yard, the bells calling service at Midday letting everyone know it was party was a great signal to let us all know the party was starting.

PS welcome to efests!  

[dumski]

What a festival!

I found there to be less youngsters this year, must have got lucky.  I even thought less drum n bass.  Certainly more garage this year but that may have been out of my choice of routes.   Only thing with the garage is music great but no hyped atmosphere.  

Queue wise,  I feel for everyone in the long queues but we've all been there.  Those I met didn't mention it really and were just enjoying themselves.  We were in campers, in by about 2 hours,  Thorough security who even did my bag this year and found 2L rum :(  They did feel sorry for me and stopped looking leaving me with only 1L so it turned into a rather expensive one.   Bars overly policed by supervisors which was a bit of a vibe killer occasionally, ID'd again 1 minute after buying my round as I forgot someone.  

Food was pretty pricey IMHO unless you really hunted around.  The Argentinian steak place downtown doing empanadas were fantastic.  Full of meat, 10x better than the Jamaican patties and samosa's I tried.

Boomtique had different, larger sauna/hot tubs, more cold showers,  a fire and music and was 50% naked.  Loved it. The workers practically encouraged drinking so happy days.  

Highlights, Runkus, Protoje, Raging Fyah, Arrested development & anything in wrong side of the tracks - it may just be a tent and a steam engine DJ booth but seemed to attract a crowd with a healthy uplifting vibe.  Exploring was fantastic as usual, being more sober probably helped!  We met loads of people on secret missions, the story line aspect is so good even when not taking part - random conversations are good.  If they knock down old town then hope its just bigger and better as its a top place.  

Roll on next year, just hope its the same type crowd. with no G I fear not.  

Will probably take my son as kids town seemed great and  its time to tone it down a bit I think.  

(i hope this didn't sound at all negative as i have NO complaints from 2017 - well maybe the roof in the toilets was an inch or too low)