Queens Of The Stone Age @ Finsbury Park

[Mash011]

2 minutes ago, xxialac said:

I agree with you on the first point but Hinds better than QOTSA?

QOTSA have been playing for 25 years and it shows in how damn tight they are. They put on an incredible show, bucketloads of charisma and swager and an epic back catalogue. Versus Hinds and their fun but lightweight and unchallenging garage pop and some middling riffs.

Sure mate, sure...

Uh oh the extremely serious rock fans are at it again. 

[Tyonks]

Had a brilliant time but as many have said queues were disastrous. Found the bar/toilets bear the entrance of the fesitval had the more tolerable queues. Found buying in bulk helped. First round bought 4 pints and two rum an cokes between me and the misses. All the band's I saw were excellent though. From where I stood sound was fine too.

[chemica]

Won’t rush back to a Festival republic show, or Finsbury Park in general. 

Good music, poor execution of every other aspect of the day it seemed. 

[fatyeti24]

Got to echo much of what has already been said. Queues were a joke, the sound was poor but the acts themselves were great.  I mean, I couldn't care less for the music of the Hives, but i could watch them all day. 

Miles Kane is an unlikable fellow with the tunes to match, but getting smashed on £33 bottles of prosecco helped with that. 

First time in years I've been to London and the first time ever at finsbury park, so I was happy being a tourist.  Dunno when I'll be back, big gigs in general are becoming more of a pain, but perhaps thats just me. 

Edited July 1, 2018 by fatyeti24

[dentalplan]

1 hour ago, Mash011 said:

Just boggles the mind that a group that has been running these events for ages can fuck up this badly while just weeks ago the APE folks came along and nailed it on their first try. Will definitely think twice about attending another one of their London events. 

Bands were good tho. For the record Hinds were the best act of the day. QotSA marvellous too. 

Not exactly rookies, the Anschutz Entertainment Group. But I think they do by and large contract things out mostly, whilst Live Nation runs a lot of stuff under their roof and keep costs down wherever possible.

[Mash011]

5 minutes ago, dentalplan said:

Not exactly rookies, the Anschutz Entertainment Group. But I think they do by and large contract things out mostly, whilst Live Nation runs a lot of stuff under their roof and keep costs down wherever possible.

Aye I just mean this specific kind of London park event which FR have been doing for ages. 

[dentalplan]

2 minutes ago, Mash011 said:

Aye I just mean this specific kind of London park event which FR have been doing for ages. 

Ah yeah that's undeniably true. It's probably a long con to make you buy VIP tickets next year.

[CraigI]

QOTSA were very good.

Venue and organisation was shambolic. Too many people in too small a space. I shudder to think what that was like for Liam Gallagher with a perhaps less mature crowd......

VIP bar was a mess as well. Why don’t they run a tokens system like other events?

[rawaudioinput]

All the acts were superb and we were fairly near the front so the sound was perfectly fine

The venue definitely felt like it was oversold though. As people have mentioned in this thread already, All Points East was busy but you never felt that the infrastructure was being stretched

It took a rather uncomfortable half an hour to get out of Finsbury Park whereas for both APE dates I attended (including the sold out Nick Cave show) it probably took about 10 minutes to leave

[Odessa]

We weren't even halfway back for Iggy Pop and our regular talking voices were comfortably louder than the music. I kinda enjoyed his set but it wasn't what I hoped it'd be. Thought the first one or two Queens songs were too quiet as well (we were fairly near the front at this point), but then they sorted it out and the sound was great from then on. Really good setlist without too much focus on Villains. Defo better than the Manchester gig in November, and that was very good itself. RTJ were brilliant obviously and I didn't have an issue with their sound. The Hives were way too quiet and pretty underwhelming; they were a lot more enjoyable at Y Not a couple of years ago, or maybe they're just not a band I needed to see more than once. I wouldn't have minded seeing Miles Kane tbh but our coach down to London was late so didn't get the chance.

When I queued up for the bar it took ages, and when I got to the front I got a couple of pints before passing the fella my card. Literally at that moment they started moaning about how the card machines were down so when he went off with my card to try and sort it, I downed the first pint and started the second one. Then he came back and told me the system was down and I'd have to pay cash or leave the drinks there. I blagged them for free so something good came out of the shambles at least. My mate queued up for us all later on so I didn't do too badly with it personally, but it's impossible to overstate just how bad the organisation was. I won't go back unless there's another lineup as unmissable as yesterday's, which is unlikely.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Odessa

[evilduck]

I feel like they could have tacked on an extra tenner to the ticket price and actually hired some real bar staff instead of volunteers. I felt that £60 was very cheap for a lineup like that in London. 

[Mark E. Spliff]

20 minutes ago, evilduck said:

I feel like they could have tacked on an extra tenner to the ticket price and actually hired some real bar staff instead of volunteers. I felt that £60 was very cheap for a lineup like that in London. 

They wouldn't have even needed to do that.  The Workers Beer Company still pay for all their volunteers, except this payment goes to whichever charity/organisation they represent.  This works really well for big popular events like Glastonbury, but makes no sense at smaller, less popular events, where they just can't attract enough volunteers willing to face the mass of angry punters who've been waiting for hours.  They are going to have to change their business model for this type of event, i.e. let the unions/charities/etc. have first dibs on putting their volunteers forward (as this is the WBC's unique selling point, which makes them stand out from all the other bar companies) but then fill up the rest of spaces with paid staff.  They'd still be paying the same amount per bar staff - only some of it would be going direct to them rather than to good causes.

The  WBC are a good organisation, but the fact that they try to be democratic/committee-driven means their management is a bit unimaginative and slow-to-react and this leads to all sorts of problems, including this one.

[thesaint78]

I see workers beer co have made a statement regarding beer queue chaos

https://www.workersbeer.co.uk/volunteers/press-statement/

This strikes me as festival republic putting pressure on WBC to take the blame on their behalf . Be interesting to see what @glasto-worker makes of it all. 

Festival republic still responsible for exits , toilet/water queues etc. Think they should make a statement themselves rather than letting WBC take the rap.

 

 

[xxialac]

27 minutes ago, thesaint78 said:

I see workers beer co have made a statement regarding beer queue chaos

https://www.workersbeer.co.uk/volunteers/press-statement/

This strikes me as festival republic putting pressure on WBC to take the blame on their behalf . Be interesting to see what @glasto-worker makes of it all. 

Festival republic still responsible for exits , toilet/water queues etc. Think they should make a statement themselves rather than letting WBC take the rap.

 

 

That statement is a joke. The lack of staff didn’t help but the biggest issue was the lack of bars for an event of this size.

And the sound was dogshite. Nothing to do with the bar staff.

The bottom line is Festival Republic are either greedy or incompetent.

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

That statement reaks of we'll take the blame if you continue to use our service for your shitty festivals, no respect for WBC there. WBC weren't to blame for over crowding, lack of bars & poorly located facilities.

Having said that, the bar staff were totally incompetent. Over ten minutes from ordering to paying for three beers & two gin & tonics... I didn't order the wine because I feared they were out back barefoot crushing the grapes to order. 

[charlierc]

The gig itself was great. Enjoyed something out of all the bands I saw (stuck to the main stage), and the headline band sounded excellent. Could've been longer IMO - they arrived 15 late and finished 10 minutes before curfew. There was also an odd moment during … Millionaire when the guitar nearly died, but it was still an excellent show.

As I don't drink, I wasn't intending to use the bar. But I went to get water between The Hives and RTJ at the station by the bar at the top of the park. I don't recall the queue for the bar also including the toilets and water, as when I got to the water, the queue didn't look long, but Christ that main bar queue in isolation was astonishing, as it was looking for the other 2 bars. Also bizarre the other main water station had overflowed. I will also agree the exit was also hideously organised.

I was sceptical about Finsbury because while I enjoyed the RATM gig there in 2010, I thought the sound for Arctic Monkeys in 2014 was poor for both them and Tame Impala, so wasn't expecting much. It did exceed my expectations on the sound score, but a lot of the general organisation needs work.

[glasto-worker]

3 hours ago, thesaint78 said:

I see workers beer co have made a statement regarding beer queue chaos

https://www.workersbeer.co.uk/volunteers/press-statement/

This strikes me as festival republic putting pressure on WBC to take the blame on their behalf . Be interesting to see what @glasto-worker makes of it all. 

Festival republic still responsible for exits , toilet/water queues etc. Think they should make a statement themselves rather than letting WBC take the rap.

 

 

please note that the WBC has been running bars at Finsbury Park since 1989 and I have covered most of them but this weekend as I have a cancer controlling implant with side effects that make me overheat I had to withdraw from this weekend as it was far too hot to work - it was all cleared in advance with the Director of the WBC. I was aware by Managers onsite letting me know that there was a huge drop out although its not clear why.

The Promoter will specify how many bars there will be - their exact footprint and location and agreed staffing numbers.

the WBC factor in so many extra Volunteers to cover staff shortage and illness and that works 99% of the time - if the extra Volunteers are not asked to work then they are told to go and enjoy the event.

I certainly cant recall there ever being such a large shortfall at any event.

If the WBC is given advance notice they will offer out the places to other Group Organisers so I suspect that this came right out the blue.If that is true they will be looking into what teams failed to show up and I suspect they will be new Teams who have not grasped the importance of only bidding for places that they are 100% certain they can cover { barring illness } 

as for Festival Republic putting pressure on the WBC - I certainly will not get into that one although its the very first time the WBC has had to apologise after a event - I will find out soon enough as the next event is in 11 days.

if there was a issue with card verification machine { some are a right pain because if the signal drops - the whole verification has to be restarted from the start } and I am sure they are already looking into that.

I am sure e-mails will be flying out to all the Group organiser who dropped out without permission. A shot before the bar got busy

Edited July 1, 2018 by glasto-worker

[Mark E. Spliff]

13 hours ago, Frankly Mr Shankly said:

Having said that, the bar staff were totally incompetent. Over ten minutes from ordering to paying for three beers & two gin & tonics... I didn't order the wine because I feared they were out back barefoot crushing the grapes to order. 

At WBC bars, delays like this are rarely down to server incompetence.  The usual explanation is a bottleneck in the system, e.g. a product which has to be hand-poured, or the multi-dispenser units playing up.  When this happens, you get a queue of servers waiting for a particular drink to complete a customer's order.  I've seen an entire bar with nobody serving the 6-deep mob of customers because they're all waiting in a queue to get at the one hand-poured cider pump.  They'll probably come across as unfriendly/incompetent, but that's just because they're so stressed out going back to the sea of faces all screaming to get served next.

Looks like people aren't buying Festival Republic's attempt to pass all the blame onto WBC...

Edited July 2, 2018 by Mark E. Spliff

[jump]

Honestly the lay out could have been better, there's loads of space at the back with no encouragement to use. 

http://www.festivalrepublic.com/sites/live.inviqa.festivalrepublic.com/files/qotsa_a4_public_map_4180_approved_21.6.18_v2.pdf

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by jump

[suttttttt]

I've seen it mentioned and I definitely think it was oversold. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of people. Every direction you looked seemed to be super over crowded, even in areas no where near the stages. Poor show from FR passing the buck like that, I'm sure they will hold their hands up soon enough. The bar situation was just one of a whole bunch of problems.

 

That aside I really enjoyed the day musically, such a high caliber of acts, even if I did miss Iggy as I was trying to get a drink.

[glasto-worker]

5 hours ago, DR OK said:

World cup weekend plus really nice weather probably led to a lot of people chucking it in id guess

I don't know at this stage but its a very high drop out + those who dropped out without Permission have screwed themselves as there is no way will they get placed for Glastonbury 2019 and Glastonbury 2020 .

These are not random people who can join a Team online as I am a Official Organiser - I have only taken on three new Volunteers in the last ten years and I make it very clear that unless they drop down dead or have a valid doctors certificate then they are expected to do the days they have requested - now these three have been excellent and they have never let me down.    

I have seen some crazy years - June 1996 with the Sex Pistols - sadly that was before there was barriers up where the volume of the crowd was so great there was a very good chance the reinforced bar and counter was about to cave in so the Bar Manager jumped on a table with a megaphone telling people to move back ' and they would not get served until they did so ' - at first they did not belive her ' so we shut the bar down - drew over the tent curtains and when the penny dropped people started backing off - that certainly was the busiest event I have seen at Finsbury park.

Being down 200 bodies is something that has never happened before - the WBC did bring in Agency staff but they tend not to be all that enthusiastic but I can understand why they did it.

Edited July 2, 2018 by glasto-worker

[tjamest]

2 hours ago, glasto-worker said:

I have seen some crazy years - June 1996 with the Sex Pistols

I remember the bars were massively busy that day, much more than for Madness the day before.

And we had Gareth Southgate (& Stuart Pearce ) introducing the Pistols

 

[glasto-worker]

50 minutes ago, tjamest said:

I remember the bars were massively busy that day, much more than for Madness the day before.

And we had Gareth Southgate (& Stuart Pearce ) introducing the Pistols

 

The Mean Fiddler claimed it was the same number of tickets sold { cant recall if there was a Friday event as well } - I did not do go round counting everyone but I know it was bloody hectic

The Madness lot was far more polite - funny enough I tend not to serve jokers who shout ' Hey c**t I want 6 pints of Cider '

I would not have a clue who Gareth Southgate & Stuart Pearce are and even looking them up - I still don't recognise them { I am not into football }

I was also working at The Phoenix Festival 96 so got two lots of the Sex Pistols but I was transferred to Mean Fiddler Production so was working dealing with the VIP's and Press so I missed the action at the front of the bar so cant say what it was like .    

[fatyeti24]

Finishing our little stop in London today with a trip to the Tower, and who should we see there but Mr and Mrs Homme. We didn't pester them as they were with their kids. 

 

[jump]

1 hour ago, fatyeti24 said:

Finishing our little stop in London today with a trip to the Tower, and who should we see there but Mr and Mrs Homme. We didn't pester them as they were with their kids. 

 

Fuck, I work around the corner, where about were they?