Boomtown Chapter 1: The Gathering

[Harry3]

Uncle Dugs of Oldskool Jungle/Hardcore Rinse FM fame has self-confirmed "10-15th August - Festival in Winchester"

[joeltg]

On 5/17/2022 at 11:03 AM, Harry3 said:

Decided to try and bag a ticket for Boomtown this year. Always thought it was better when it was all connected together in the bowl, and hoping the lack of lineup will drive away the ketamine and DnB addicted kind of person that I used to be 😂

Unfortunately one of our group have to bail this year, could ask him for you as I am sure it is possible to reassign Boomtown tickets? 

[gfa]

[Harry3]

6 hours ago, joeltg said:

Unfortunately one of our group have to bail this year, could ask him for you as I am sure it is possible to reassign Boomtown tickets? 

Thanks for the offer but there was lots of people reselling their tickets through TicketSellers on the Boomtown facebook page. Was dead easy if your mate needs to resell his.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Harry3

[ThatCubT]

Hoping that the immersive maze will be here in some fashion as the theatrics was a huge draw for me.

[Harry3]

3 hours ago, ThatCubT said:

Hoping that the immersive maze will be here in some fashion as the theatrics was a huge draw for me.

From what Ive heard there isnt gonna be a story that you follow with QR codes like previous years, and no mysterious websites or clue finding. But the usual venues like the Job Centre, Boomtown Bobbies and many others will still be doing theatrical stuff during the day.

[ace56blaa]

Does anyone wanna buy my boomtown ticket for a reduced price life shizz has gone down n need to sell my festival tickets fast

[mr flow]

[Hawky93]

[Old_Johno]

On 5/22/2022 at 3:08 PM, ThatCubT said:

Hoping that the immersive maze will be here in some fashion as the theatrics was a huge draw for me.

There will be lots of theatrics, actors and interactive things to do but they’ve said there isn’t currently a maze as it was in the last few years.

Secretly hoping it’s just gone back to being a speakeasy style maze as last years “queue here to scan a qr code”maze was shite, and took away any of the organic discovery. 

[joeltg]

No Psychedelic forests this year then.....I loved those areas!

[Old_Johno]

They’ve confirmed they’re going cashless. I hope they still take contactless.
I went to a festival where you had to top up your wristband and the whole system crashed on the Friday night so there was no way to top up, and then they took 6 weeks to refund any remaining balance back. Pure waste of time. 

[moonhunter]

That email they’ve just sent out has got me a bit emotional! Even in 2019 I felt like I was maybe growing out of Boomtown / or it was starting to lose itself, and definitely have my doubts about this year (bought a ticket in lockdown out of sheer nostalgia!). But I really do hope it all works out for them 

[Harry3]

Whats the gist of the email? Can someone post it?

[Harry3]

30 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

They’ve confirmed they’re going cashless. I hope they still take contactless.
I went to a festival where you had to top up your wristband and the whole system crashed on the Friday night so there was no way to top up, and then they took 6 weeks to refund any remaining balance back. Pure waste of time. 

"This means that apart from at the top up points which do accept cash and cards, cash and cards will not be used at Boomtown anywhere within the city walls" Doesnt sound like it!

[mjfromthelane]

31 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

They’ve confirmed they’re going cashless. I hope they still take contactless.
I went to a festival where you had to top up your wristband and the whole system crashed on the Friday night so there was no way to top up, and then they took 6 weeks to refund any remaining balance back. Pure waste of time. 

My mate took it to mean tokens/topped up wristband and I thought they just meant contactless.

Really hope it's not the former, I don't see how that is better for anyone.

[joeltg]

10 minutes ago, moonhunter said:

That email they’ve just sent out has got me a bit emotional! Even in 2019 I felt like I was maybe growing out of Boomtown / or it was starting to lose itself, and definitely have my doubts about this year (bought a ticket in lockdown out of sheer nostalgia!). But I really do hope it all works out for them 

I feel you...and I for one cannot wait to be back there. 

[Old_Johno]

6 minutes ago, mjfromthelane said:

My mate took it to mean tokens/topped up wristband and I thought they just meant contactless.

Really hope it's not the former, I don't see how that is better for anyone.

Harry3 posted above, looks like it’s preloaded wristbands. It might have had a place 5 years ago when not everyone had contactless, if you wanted to streamline payments instead of cash/ chip and pin. 

But in 2022, seems they’re just hoping they get a bit of cash left over 

[joeltg]

12 minutes ago, Harry3 said:

Whats the gist of the email? Can someone post it?

Dear community,

It’s very rare that we would write a letter directly to you all, but at this moment it suddenly felt really right, and perhaps this direct communication will become less rare in the future, who knows…

Firstly, after just over 1000 days of waiting, we are just 75 days out from dancing together in the beautiful fields of Hampshire. It’s almost unbelievable and sometimes we wake up and have to kick ourselves to make sure it’s real. All the new stage sets are very nearly built, the huge circus shows are being rehearsed, the detail down to the secret alleyways in Old Town have been perfected…. And right now we are genuinely feeling like this year will blow all other boomtown chapters out the water… 

Despite the crazy dynamics, emotions and complexities of the current climate, we are still here, and we would not be sitting writing this letter if you had not rolled your ticket money over. We are so so grateful, and at a time when it seems many events are struggling to sell tickets, to be completely sold out, with a waiting list in the thousands, shows the energy and love for our community.

But all that aside, we are in a very surreal place with the festival. When your whole company  model, everything you have spent your life building up is based around one weekend a year, and then that moment can’t happen suddenly, and then for a 2nd year, it adds all sorts of complexities and emotions into the mix that wouldn’t happen in other organisations we know of. This letter intends to lay out the fundamentals of boomtown at this present time and give clarity to all of where we are…. 

But we need to say this.. when we chose to reset Boomtown, to come back to Chapter 1, in direct consultation with many of you we made some pretty big changes.. This was all about giving Boomtown the best chance of not only surviving after three years out, and hardly any financial income, but to ensure a long and exciting future, where we can not only really focus in on our unique creativity, but also our commitment to inspire positive change in the world, as one of just three festivals to sign an important Green Deal to become carbon neutral by 2025… 

The main city footprint is in the bowl:

We have chosen to build the main part of the city into downtown, this does mean we lose  our beloved Lion’s Den and Psychedelic Forest arenas, however it has allowed us to really enhance the camping experience, adding in centralised villages to focus all our creative energy into one central and spectacular immersive space for you all to explore. 

Line ups:

We are not releasing artist line ups until just before the festival. As ever, we are so proud of the huge selection of national and international music we have booked, across every genre, and strongly believe it to be the most diverse and exciting yet. As we have mentioned before, we never set out to be a festival that people attend because of who sits at the top of a poster. So the shackles and pressures of the line-up are off and we ask you to please come to Chapter 1 with your hearts wide open, ready to immerse yourself deep into Boomtowns music culture as we continue to support and celebrate underground  subcultures.

No cash needed: 

Hands down one of the most controversial things we have ever done, the team have been  so split on this, as on one side we are really against controlled systems, and on the other side we do see many benefits, but in the end we decided to give it a ‘give it a go’ in the hope of creating a fairer system for the many hundreds of outlets we have, with fee’s that reflect their individual takings. We have seen first hand the research from friends festivals across the world, we really do hope it will be easier and simpler from your side as well, please take a moment to explore the system when it goes live shortly. 

A reduction In meat: 

This year we are reducing the amount of meat outlets to a 50/50 split to really help with our sustainability goals.. We do not agree with the way the meat industry is run in many cases. However, to take meat out entirely does not feel right for us at this stage. Instead we have chosen to really build up and focus on the incredible vegetarian offerings at the festival, to balance things out, but also to really dive in and focus on the quality and source of the meat used, this will have knock on’s to some food prices with meat, but one we felt was an unavoidable necessity. 

Fundamentally, there is a very clear reason why there is no other event like Boomtown on the planet, and that is because its people can and do look at things differently, through a lens that many others clearly do not. So with rising seas, extreme heat waves, and the raging forest fires, there has never been a more important time for us to come together and act in total unity, to take inspiration from the indigenous people and elders that have come to guide Boomtown in recent years, who have really taught us to see what we truly deeply care about, to help us love and respect ourselves, each other and this phenomenal planet  that we call home. 

We cannot possibly achieve this huge commitment without you all, really, deeply looking at how you see your time at the festival this august. What will you bring? Will it be reusable, can you inspire your neighbours to keep their camp tidy and clean up? Is there a way you  can car share or come by public transport ?

There is so much more we could say right now but this letter has already ended up larger than initially planned haha! 

So finally.. Boomtown Chapter 1 will be the wildest party imaginable, the ultimate celebration of life, of creativity, of connection (the human kind). We will get dressed up in the most out outrageous outfits, and we will stomp on those dancefloors for days on end…. but we need do so with a form of etiquette never managed before, in the way the ancient communities all over the world have done for thousands of years to harness change for the better for a more balanced and harmonious world.  

 

With full love and respect,
Lak and Chris x

 

[Harry3]

8 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

Harry3 posted above, looks like it’s preloaded wristbands. It might have had a place 5 years ago when not everyone had contactless, if you wanted to streamline payments instead of cash/ chip and pin. 

But in 2022, seems they’re just hoping they get a bit of cash left over 

In the email joel was very kind to post, it sounds like theres benefits to the traders in that they dont have to pay fees for every transaction? Although Ive only ever heard negative things about cashless systems when they were used at Download for example, with long queues to top up and system crashes.

[Leyrulion]

It's such a weird message I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. 

It's comes across as fairly defensive when without this email I wouldn't really be aware of any of the issues. Rather then get excited about it I'm now just thinking about the things they've cut and the move to cashless. 🤣

Are they getting rid of forest parties entirely?

Edited May 26, 2022 by Leyrulion

[joeltg]

8 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

It's such a weird message I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. 

It's comes across as fairly defensive when without this email I wouldn't really be aware of any of the issues. Rather then get excited about it I'm now just thinking about the things they've cut and the move to cashless. 🤣

Are they getting rid of forest parties entirely?

Sincerely hope not!

Part of the magic for me is discovering all the parts in between as well as weaving in and out of the districts. 

Let's hope they utilise the space...according the website we still have forest parties. 

The City | Boomtown 'The Gathering' - 10th-14th August 2022 | Independent UK Festival (boomtownfair.co.uk)

Edited May 26, 2022 by joeltg

[Leyrulion]

6 minutes ago, joeltg said:

Sincerely hope not!

Part of the magic for me is discovering all the parts in between as well as weaving in and out of the districts. 

Let's hope they utilise the space...according the website we still have forest parties. 

The City | Boomtown 'The Gathering' - 10th-14th August 2022 | Independent UK Festival (boomtownfair.co.uk)

Haven't been before so was unsure if the forest party and psychedelic forest were different things.

[Harry3]

7 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Haven't been before so was unsure if the forest party and psychedelic forest were different things.

I assume they mean literally just the Psy Forest, which was miles away from the bowl and makes sense why its not going to be there. But if we go by what it was like the last time it was all in the bowl, you should still have Tribe of Frog, Tangled Roots and the Hidden Woods.

[joeltg]

2 hours ago, Harry3 said:

I assume they mean literally just the Psy Forest, which was miles away from the bowl and makes sense why its not going to be there. But if we go by what it was like the last time it was all in the bowl, you should still have Tribe of Frog, Tangled Roots and the Hidden Woods.

Ah gotcha....such a cool vibe to that part though. Exciting all the same so see how this one goes.