Boomtown 2018

[bennyhana22]

It's funny isn't it? We all dread the stress of Glastonbury T Day, but there's something so very sweet about success on that day of days.

Thrilled to be going to my first Boomtown, but it was almost 'too easy'!

Ben

[Sku]

For anyone interested in the attendance history of this rapidly growing festival:

2009: 1000

2010: 5000-8000 (not sure)

2011: 13000

2012: 20000

2013: 30000

2014: 38000

2015: 50000

2016, 2017, 2018: 60000

Most years since 2013 have been a sellout. 2013 sold out rather unexpectedly for a lot of fans, and tickets were being resold at double/triple the price. Since then the large capacity increases each year have kept up with demand much better, with sell outs only occurring a few weeks before the festival. Now they have capped out at 60,000, which is about the maximum the estate and local roads can handle, it's only going to get harder and more expensive to get tickets each year (until the festival falls out of fashion at least).

If its true they sold 12,000 tickets in the first couple of minutes, it seems reasonable that this will totally sell out far quicker than anyone expects, probably the day the first wave of the lineup is released. Boomtown have hinted they are booking some big names for the 10th anniversary, and the price increase suggests they should have the budget to do so. I don't expect huge commercial dance acts (please no), but certainly some of the bigger names within the underground genres already represented at the festival can probably be expected.

All in all it's amazing that in just in under 10 years a festival that doesn't book many acts that appeal to the general festival going public, can achieve 60,000 sell outs. And with 12,000 tickets sold in just 5 minutes, even with a £20 price hike and no line up even announced, it seems the festival could be going the way of Glastonbury, where people just "trust" the organizers to put on a good event without even needing to see a line up first.

Anyway, I'm all locked in with a tier 2 ticket for my 5th Boomtown (12,14,15,16,18). Bring it on.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Sku

[glastonburynoodles]

Much easier than last year, 4 xTier 1 ticket, done by 7.03! Can't wait, highlight of the summer!

[Michaels denim shorts]

5 minutes ago, bennyhana22 said:

It's funny isn't it? We all dread the stress of Glastonbury T Day, but there's something so very sweet about success on that day of days.

Thrilled to be going to my first Boomtown, but it was almost 'too easy'!

Ben

It really was. And likewise my first boomtown too

(my my it's quiet around here too) 

hope all is well 

 

[Gnomicide]

Really fancied this but can't commit myself at the moment for reasons too dull to go into. Have a great time everyone who secured tickets.

I believe the phrase is well jell. 

[Tommy101]

Did you get a ticket sorted Ben? 

[eFestivals]

10 hours ago, Sku said:

All in all it's amazing that in just in under 10 years a festival that doesn't book many acts that appeal to the general festival going public, can achieve 60,000 sell outs. And with 12,000 tickets sold in just 5 minutes, even with a £20 price hike and no line up even announced, it seems the festival could be going the way of Glastonbury, where people just "trust" the organizers to put on a good event without even needing to see a line up first.

I love boomtown, so this isn't a slagging.....

The line-up they've been putting on isn't going to be selling them many tickets. Hardly any, I reckon. 

Thi is a festival where - like is often said about Glastonbury but which has never really been true, and gets less true each year - it's not about the line-up .

For Glastonbury people trust the organisers to have a shit hot line-up.
For Boomtown people trust the organisers to put on a shit hot event.

Not quite the same things and I'm more impressed with Boomtown's achievement, because they've managed it in a much more competitive time.

[WheresMyTent]

Put my deposit down last night, super excited! Although I made the silly mistake in thinking the deposit/split payments were still in Tiers. Tier 1 was still available when I added to my basket, but chose deposit so I could have more money for Christmas presents this month. Now stuck with a £216+ ticket! Ah well, lesson learned!

This’ll be my 6th Boomtown but my first as a ticket holder! I normally volunteer as a steward, this year I worked as a steward supervisor. So much fun to work it, the crew bar is fantastic, but I’m excited to finally be able to experience every minute of the Fair as a punter. 

[kingbadger]

11 hours ago, bennyhana22 said:

It's funny isn't it? We all dread the stress of Glastonbury T Day, but there's something so very sweet about success on that day of days.

Thrilled to be going to my first Boomtown, but it was almost 'too easy'!

Ben

Ahhh you're gonna love it Ben! I went this year, mainly on Neil's recommendation and despite me not necessarily fitting Boomtown's target audience criteria and I absolutely loved it. Walking around the site for the first time and seeing how ridiculously manic and extraordinarily detailed the place is was awesome. It's like the naughty corner on steroids for the most part, with all the fun of the T+C fields thrown in too.

One added bonus is how ridiculously quick drying the place was. The opening was delayed and the festival almost cancelled because of the sheer amount of rain in the lead up, probably more than what Glastonbury took in 2016. Yet having gone in on Thursday night by Saturday it was trainer conditions underfoot!

[man next door]

11 hours ago, Sku said:

For anyone interested in the attendance history of this rapidly growing festival:

2009: 1000

2010: 5000-8000 (not sure)

2011: 13000

2012: 20000

2013: 30000

2014: 38000

2015: 50000

2016, 2017, 2018: 60000

Most years since 2013 have been a sellout. 2013 sold out rather unexpectedly for a lot of fans, and tickets were being resold at double/triple the price. Since then the large capacity increases each year have kept up with demand much better, with sell outs only occurring a few weeks before the festival. Now they have capped out at 60,000, which is about the maximum the estate and local roads can handle, it's only going to get harder and more expensive to get tickets each year (until the festival falls out of fashion at least).

If its true they sold 12,000 tickets in the first couple of minutes, it seems reasonable that this will totally sell out far quicker than anyone expects, probably the day the first wave of the lineup is released. Boomtown have hinted they are booking some big names for the 10th anniversary, and the price increase suggests they should have the budget to do so. I don't expect huge commercial dance acts (please no), but certainly some of the bigger names within the underground genres already represented at the festival can probably be expected.

All in all it's amazing that in just in under 10 years a festival that doesn't book many acts that appeal to the general festival going public, can achieve 60,000 sell outs. And with 12,000 tickets sold in just 5 minutes, even with a £20 price hike and no line up even announced, it seems the festival could be going the way of Glastonbury, where people just "trust" the organizers to put on a good event without even needing to see a line up first.

Anyway, I'm all locked in with a tier 2 ticket for my 5th Boomtown (12,14,15,16,18). Bring it on.

Sorry for the pedantry, but 2010 (my first year) was 3000. 

Atleast I'm as sure of that as anyone can be about a detail of a boomtown weekend 7 years ago. 

It really was small that year, the lions den (second stage) was a tent of no more than 300-400 I'd have said.

 

[Tommy101]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

For Boomtown people trust the organisers to put on a shit hot event.

Not quite the same things and I'm more impressed with Boomtown's achievement, because they've managed it in a much more competitive time.

Does anywhere else come close to doing what they do? 

I suppose a small part of Glastonbury does, and from my experience small parts of Bestival do but not to the same scale/extravagance. 

It's like they've found their niche. So excited even though I'm the only one i know with a ticket. Loads of my mates are planning on getting tickets later so hopefully some of those will turn up. If not, so be it. 

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, Tommy101 said:

Does anywhere else come close to doing what they do? 

Given that what they're doing is pretty much just an expansion of what Glastonbury was already doing in the SE corner, I don't think they can be credited with too much uniqueness.

 

5 minutes ago, Tommy101 said:

It's like they've found their niche. 

They've found a niche, yep.

It'll be interesting to see how sustainable it might be going forwards. I think there's a risk of it being a bit too much of a fashion-based thing for the 'party people', who are always quick to move on to the next new shiny thing.

I don't say that as a slag-off, but because I'm seeing a theme where they've picked up the same crowd* whose loss has already badly impacted on (at least) two festivals who had that crowd before boomtown.

(* i don't mean the same crowd of the same individuals).

In the meantime it's by far the most innovative and interesting and different festival, and all power to it.

[lucyginger]

Got mine last night! My second Boomtown Very excited! 

 

[Winslow Leach]

Oh shit I missed that they were on sale this early, how long are we expecting them to take to sell out completely?

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Oh shit I missed that they were on sale this early, how long are we expecting them to take to sell out completely?

It's really hard to judge, because it's not really a festival where line-up announcements are going to be directly driving sales (tho of course the publicity caused by announcements will help 'remind' people to buy).

And it's also hard to judge because we don't know how many tickets they sold yesterday. Someone said tier 1 & 2 was 12,000 tix, so it's at least that.

I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it's sold out early in the new year, as traffic to this website always ramps up very strongly from the new year. It appears to be the case that a new year makes people think festivals.

I will be surprised if it hasn't sold out by the start of May.

[Winslow Leach]

4 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

It's really hard to judge, because it's not really a festival where line-up announcements are going to be directly driving sales (tho of course the publicity caused by announcements will help 'remind' people to buy).

And it's also hard to judge because we don't know how many tickets they sold yesterday. Someone said tier 1 & 2 was 12,000 tix, so it's at least that.

I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it's sold out early in the new year, as traffic to this website always ramps up very strongly from the new year. It appears to be the case that a new year makes people think festivals.

I will be surprised if it hasn't sold out by the start of May.

Oh right, I wasn’t sure if we were talking days or months. That’s reassuring.

I guess sales might get a boost from people looking to plug the Glastonbury gap.

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Oh right, I wasn’t sure if we were talking days or months. That’s reassuring.

I guess sales might get a boost from people looking to plug the Glastonbury gap.

It might be days or a month or two months or three months or six months.

And yep, they'll be people looking to plug the Glastonbury gap - tho I'd say an awful lot of the Glastonbury buying is due to major-band line-up, so Boomtown won't really get those people's attention.

It'll defo sell out earlier this year than it normally does, tho. That's a no-brainer.

[man next door]

3 hours ago, Tommy101 said:

Does anywhere else come close to doing what they do? 

I suppose a small part of Glastonbury does, and from my experience small parts of Bestival do but not to the same scale/extravagance. 

It's like they've found their niche. So excited even though I'm the only one i know with a ticket. Loads of my mates are planning on getting tickets later so hopefully some of those will turn up. If not, so be it. 

there's a bit of an overlap with Beatherder, which is smaller, more northern, and more housey - but certainly before boomtown got huge I thought they were quite similar.

They both pushed the visual / immersive aspects of festivalling 

[man next door]

3 hours ago, eFestivals said:

Given that what they're doing is pretty much just an expansion of what Glastonbury was already doing in the SE corner, I don't think they can be credited with too much uniqueness.

 

They've found a niche, yep.

It'll be interesting to see how sustainable it might be going forwards. I think there's a risk of it being a bit too much of a fashion-based thing for the 'party people', who are always quick to move on to the next new shiny thing.

I don't say that as a slag-off, but because I'm seeing a theme where they've picked up the same crowd* whose loss has already badly impacted on (at least) two festivals who had that crowd before boomtown.

(* i don't mean the same crowd of the same individuals).

In the meantime it's by far the most innovative and interesting and different festival, and all power to it.

which festivals were they?

 

[eFestivals]

15 minutes ago, man next door said:

which festivals were they?

My take is that 'the party crowd'* moved from The Big Chill to Bestival to Boomtown.

(* which isn't the same bunch of individuals each year, to be clear.)

[tjamest]

19 minutes ago, man next door said:

which festivals were they?

I'm guessing Bestival is one of them and now there is only a week separating them so it will be interesting to see who goes where

Edited November 2, 2017 by tjamest

[man next door]

11 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

My take is that 'the party crowd'* moved from The Big Chill to Bestival to Boomtown.

(* which isn't the same bunch of individuals each year, to be clear.)

yeah, makes sense.

Still never worked out how big chill went so wrong. Had three great years there, before the rot set in.

[zahidf]

4 minutes ago, man next door said:

yeah, makes sense.

Still never worked out how big chill went so wrong. Had three great years there, before the rot set in.

Didnt they lose a LOT of money with the year they had Kanye headline? it never seemed to sell out either

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Didnt they lose a LOT of money with the year they had Kanye headline? it never seemed to sell out either

it used to sell out every year. Then there was a conflict of ideas between the two owners, about its direction and size. 'Get bigger' won the day, and it continued to sell out for a while.

Then one of the owners sold up and left - and he was a stronger part of what drove it than anyone realised i think.

It struggled for a year or two under that changed ownership, and then was sold to Festival Republic. It ran under their ownership for a few years without it turning around, and Kanye was the last year. It would be unfair to blame Kanye for its death, but i think its fair to say that Kanye wasn't a big ticket shifter for a rural camping festival.

[JBarbour]

15,500 tickets in total selling on the first night!