Boomtown 2019: Chapter 11

[Henrik]

Oh really? This is my first Boomtown so I will bow to your superior knowledge  

Hopefully it will be wall to wall sunshine but if not I'll pack me boots! 

[lucyginger]

Bring wellies to appease the weather gods! we need to bring things for every outcome, so wellies and suncream to keep the gods happy  

NFR NFC! Keep the faith, people! 

Apologies for lack of sticky stick or jam jar, I got a flat tyre last night so had wine to help. Will find a jar later! 

[jimbarkanoodle]

Lugging big, heavy, bulky wellies to a festival just because it might rain is bizarre planning. Chances are you wont need them then you have wasted all that space and energy carrying them.

Even when festivals have been muddy I've still worn trainers. I have a long standing theory that the reason festivals turn muddy is because of people unnecessarily wearing wellies, rather than the rain itself. Wellies are heavy, aggressive footwear designed to worn on a farm, that grind up the ground easily. If, when it rains for 10 minutes, people didn't all rush and put on ground destroying wellies and stayed in trainers, the ground would not grind up to shit so easily.

Moral of the story is- wellies are completely unnecessary unless under extreme circumstances- i.e when its been raining solidly for 2 days straight at Glastonbury. Then you might need wellies. You don't need them because it rained for the first time all weekend for 3 minutes and the site is otherwise dry.  

[frostypaw]

Yeah that's it magically the different tread on the soles turns ground to mud. That years of Boomtown's before when everyones turned up in trainers and it's still turned to mud be damned?

I agree wellies are rarely necessary but qué? That's just a load of bonkers cobbled together to feel in the right and blame other people's behaviour for problems.

[Henrik]

Hard to know what to make of the latest weather runs tbh.

Not too bad but not great either. 

Unfortunately it looks like there is a fair bit of rain about but hopefully just in the form of an odd shower.

Still all to play for I guess. 

[jimbarkanoodle]

All I am saying is, I have gone to probably about 30+ festivals in my time. Only twice ever have I had to admit defeat and put on wellies (normally sourced from outside someone tent), they were Bestival 2008 and Glastonbury 2016, both were fucking washouts with thick, deep mud across the whole site. All other times, even wet years at Boomtown et al, I have managed with trainers.

If I can manage, then so cant most people.

If you were to do an experiment where you walk over a patch of grass in wellies, then trainers, I guarantee the grass will deteriorate, break down and turn into mud far quicker and easier with the wellies. If everyone didn't put on wellies even with the glimpse of a grey cloud in sky the ground would hold its stability for much longer. No wonder the place turns into mud when 30,000 pairs of wellies start trampling all over it, when it would be perfectly adequate conditions to still be wearing trainers.

[Sku]

1 minute ago, Henrik said:

Hard to know what to make of the latest weather runs tbh.

Not too bad but not great either. 

Unfortunately it looks like there is a fair bit of rain about but hopefully just in the form of an odd shower.

Still all to play for I guess. 

Quite unpredictable sorts of weather systems at play here. In all likelihood, we still won't really be sure what is going to happen even on Tuesday next week.

Boomtown was dominated by low pressure systems last year. All the forecasts showed the rain dodging Boomtown, even on the Wednesday before. But that's not how it went down...

[Henrik]

4 minutes ago, Sku said:

But that's not how it went down...

I don't remember hearing anything about the weather last year. Was it a wash out? 

[mr flow]

2 minutes ago, Henrik said:

I don't remember hearing anything about the weather last year. Was it a wash out? 

It wasn't a washout, but it did rain regularly throughout the weekend.

[mr flow]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

yup, to some extent.

But (in Bristol terms) it's in the arse-end of nowhere with shit public transport, so is less likely to get the more-casual attendee.

I'm not saying that means it can't succeed, but it does make it harder. I don't think it'll be near the top of the list for other promoters to use, for example.

It's pretty close to Temple Meads and Motion is also pretty close which hasn't had a problem attracting promoters previously.

 

[Sku]

41 minutes ago, mr flow said:

It wasn't a washout, but it did rain regularly throughout the weekend.

Yeah pretty much. I seem to remember most evenings were OK. Friday and Sunday both suffered biblical downpours in the early to mid afternoon.

[Tommy101]

Sounds about right to me, it was a true test of waterproofs that weekend. Was fine in walking boots though (I am aware that there have been river flowing through the site type washouts in the past, I'd imagine you need a horrific weekend at the end of particularly wet summer for that to happen again) although again this year I'll probably bring some along and hope I don't use them despite Jims interesting take on geology and footwear.

 

 

[lucyginger]

10 minutes ago, Sku said:

Yeah pretty much. I seem to remember most evenings were OK. Friday and Sunday both suffered biblical downpours in the early to mid afternoon.

We had to abandon watching Morcheeba as we were soaked to the skin! Went back to camp to change, during which i spilled a whole pot of glitter in my tent which meant for a VERY fabulous evening!!  

 

[Sku]

26 minutes ago, lucyginger said:

We had to abandon watching Morcheeba as we were soaked to the skin! Went back to camp to change, during which i spilled a whole pot of glitter in my tent which meant for a VERY fabulous evening!!  

 

We were going to go to Mocheeba, but the heavens opened just before. We figured it wasn't the most uplifting type of music to stay out for during pouring rain and took shelter. It really was the heaviest kind of rain, I imagine the crowd must have been pretty small?

It stopped just in time for Jimmy Cliff, which we did manage to catch on the Lions Den (which was after Morcheeba I think). The steep slopes of The Lions Den had become a death trap, and 2 of us fell over on the way into the arena.

The rain then held off for the rest of the evening, apart from briefly starting again during "I Can See Clearly Now"... typical.

[Tommy101]

Must've only been a couple of hundred for Morcheeba, if that.

I'm pretty sure the singer laughed out loud (in a sympathetic as opposed to mean way) at the situation while thanking people for putting up with it.

[frostypaw]

We were there for Morcheeba - though I imagine we looked more like a huge green poncho ghost as we were sat raving under that for much of it - somehow kept the blanket we were on dry. Not nice.

Luckily nobody was ready for it so everyone was in trainers and nothing happened.

[lucyginger]

2 hours ago, Tommy101 said:

Must've only been a couple of hundred for Morcheeba, if that.

I'm pretty sure the singer laughed out loud (in a sympathetic as opposed to mean way) at the situation while thanking people for putting up with it.

Yes I think that happened too! 

It was a small crowd, we were sat up at the back on the bit before it gets really slopey. There were a lot of slidey people there!!! 

[mr flow]

There's a new App coming soon which will be used to access the maze storyline. It's on the app store and is called Access AMI.

Not sure how it will work though, as it doesn't really do much currently!

Edited July 31, 2019 by mr flow

[lucyginger]

1 hour ago, mr flow said:

There's a new App coming soon which will be used to access the maze storyline. It's on the app store and is called Access AMI.

Not sure how it will work though, as it doesn't really do much currently!

Yeah I downloaded it the other day! I’m not up to speed with the going’s on so far though, it’s all a bit very confusing!! 

[mr flow]

47 minutes ago, lucyginger said:

Yeah I downloaded it the other day! I’m not up to speed with the going’s on so far though, it’s all a bit very confusing!! 

Yeah I have no idea how it will work either. I’ll see if I can find out the manual start of the maze so you don’t have to try and work out how to use a rather confusing app!

[Sasperella]

6 hours ago, lucyginger said:

We had to abandon watching Morcheeba as we were soaked to the skin! Went back to camp to change, during which i spilled a whole pot of glitter in my tent which meant for a VERY fabulous evening!!  

 

I refused to admit that I was wet until I took my waterproof off by the fire and realised I was indeed soaked to the skin....seemed to dry alright though! Much preferred that morcheeba storm to the one on the Friday morning when I was stuck outside doing my Oxfam shift and lost my phone to the rain gods ?

If you were still a bit wet when the glitter escaped I bet it was super fabulous!!

[lucyginger]

1 hour ago, mr flow said:

Yeah I have no idea how it will work either. I’ll see if I can find out the manual start of the maze so you don’t have to try and work out how to use a rather confusing app!

Oh fab, thanks!!! 

[Radi0Head]

11 hours ago, payneruk said:

Back to the weather topic. Are walking boots goo enough or will I need wellies? I've heard the rain drains away quite quickly unlike Glastonbury.

I’d recommend crampons and an ice axe to get from one side of the valley to the other

[Radi0Head]

9 hours ago, jimbarkanoodle said:

All I am saying is, I have gone to probably about 30+ festivals in my time. Only twice ever have I had to admit defeat and put on wellies (normally sourced from outside someone tent), they were Bestival 2008 and Glastonbury 2016, both were fucking washouts with thick, deep mud across the whole site. All other times, even wet years at Boomtown et al, I have managed with trainers.

If I can manage, then so cant most people.

If you were to do an experiment where you walk over a patch of grass in wellies, then trainers, I guarantee the grass will deteriorate, break down and turn into mud far quicker and easier with the wellies. If everyone didn't put on wellies even with the glimpse of a grey cloud in sky the ground would hold its stability for much longer. No wonder the place turns into mud when 30,000 pairs of wellies start trampling all over it, when it would be perfectly adequate conditions to still be wearing trainers.

Love it or hate it you can’t deny Jim is spitting straight facts. Let’s have a welly burning at Boomtown this year. In fact what we need to do is set up a welly free zone for all the alpha chad trainer gods can live in mud free paradise away from the wicked welly wallies

[Sku]

5 hours ago, lucyginger said:

Yeah I downloaded it the other day! I’m not up to speed with the going’s on so far though, it’s all a bit very confusing!! 

Don't worry about all the stuff that's been going on too much, it's mostly just to try and generate some interest (and it seems to be working). It should be easy for everyone to get involved just by using the app this year. You don't need to be a total expert on all this storyline stuff happening on Facebook. 

The festival are really trying hard to make sure getting involved in the storyline is easy for everyone. I hear a lot of effort is going into the it this year. Can't wait to see what the result is!