Festival Republic pilot

[Pr0paneNightm4re]

https://completemusicupdate.com/article/festival-republic-planning-10000-capacity-camping-festival-as-part-of-governments-covid-research-programme-next-month/
Just started this topic as I don’t think there’s been any discussion about this. 10,000 cap festival in mid June. Does anyone have any thoughts of where this might be or who could be playing? Hopefully it’s not Liverpool again as it’d be good to give another city a turn

[adequate8]

Wonder if this is why fests like wilderness are still holding off announcements 

[SweepingTheNation]

17 minutes ago, adequate8 said:

Wonder if this is why fests like wilderness are still holding off announcements 

More to the point, is it why FR's Latitude a month later is holding off on announcements?

[efcfanwirral]

2 hours ago, Pr0paneNightm4re said:

https://completemusicupdate.com/article/festival-republic-planning-10000-capacity-camping-festival-as-part-of-governments-covid-research-programme-next-month/
Just started this topic as I don’t think there’s been any discussion about this. 10,000 cap festival in mid June. Does anyone have any thoughts of where this might be or who could be playing? Hopefully it’s not Liverpool again as it’d be good to give another city a turn

You would hope  for 10,000 people that it won't be limited to a local area this time. Not convinced they could find that many people in one area within a couple of weeks. Plus if they want to simulate a real world situation it should be including people coming from anywhere in the country. 

Very interested in trying for this, as I expect the camping ones I've got tickets for won't be able to wait for the results of it so I'll happily take part in a trial! 

[TheFullShaboo]

Was hoping this would be the second weekend as busy the rest, but assuming it’s too short notice now for that to be possible.

After seeing the videos of the gigs in Liverpool imagine the feeling of finally entering the gates of an actual festival after 2 years off.

A weekend of serious merriment, regardless off who’s playing. 

[Gilgamesh69]

Id be excited if it wasn't Festival republic behind it. Can't wait to see  *checks notes* white guys that want to be Oasis  and... another white guy with a guitar and a regional accent

[Pr0paneNightm4re]

Just now, Gilgamesh69 said:

Id be excited if it wasn't Festival republic behind it. Can't wait to see  *checks notes* white guys that want to be Oasis  and... another white guy with a guitar and a regional accent

I mean fair enough they do book a lot of boring big indie acts like blossoms all the time but it sells. One of the days at r&l is all female acts in the festival republic stage and Melvin benn definitely is committed to try have more of an equal representation on lineup bills. Hoping cos it’s truck fest level cap it could be some acts like wolf alice or foals etc

[Gilgamesh69]

3 minutes ago, Pr0paneNightm4re said:

I mean fair enough they do book a lot of boring big indie acts like blossoms all the time but it sells. One of the days at r&l is all female acts in the festival republic stage and Melvin benn definitely is committed to try have more of an equal representation on lineup bills. Hoping cos it’s truck fest level cap it could be some acts like wolf alice or foals etc

Yeah that would be good. Throw in Fontaines too...

[Pr0paneNightm4re]

12 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

Yeah that would be good. Throw in Fontaines too...

Not another white guy with a guitar but Fontaine’s? Make your mind up haha

[TheFullShaboo]

1 hour ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

Id be excited if it wasn't Festival republic behind it. Can't wait to see  *checks notes* white guys that want to be Oasis  and... another white guy with a guitar and a regional accent

Lineups aren’t my thing anymore but never known a festival republic festival to not run smoothly whilst I’m there.

Been to loads of festivals with banging line ups whilst being a logistical and organisational nightmare mind you!

[gfa]

20 hours ago, Pr0paneNightm4re said:

I mean fair enough they do book a lot of boring big indie acts like blossoms all the time but it sells. One of the days at r&l is all female acts in the festival republic stage and Melvin benn definitely is committed to try have more of an equal representation on lineup bills. Hoping cos it’s truck fest level cap it could be some acts like wolf alice or foals etc

acts will be lining up, who it is will be interesting to see. that article was a week ago so should be getting announced very very soon, next week i suppose. hopefully its in the south but i'd drive up if its allowed/get tickets

[stereodista]

So it’s a Download job: 

https://downloadfestival.co.uk/download-pilot/

[foolee]

Do you think it'll be okay to train and taxi to the event as I don't have a car?

Also, You Me At Six will be playing.

Edited May 26, 2021 by foolee

[SweepingTheNation]

So the event is 18th-20th June, the PCR tests have to be taken five days later, and only after those are analysed will festivals know whether they can go ahead? That's cutting things very fine, and that's not even considering if the results are bad.

[gfa]

tickets on sale to download ticket holders first for fucks sake

[Paul ™]

16 minutes ago, gfa said:

tickets on sale to download ticket holders first for fucks sake

Rightly so.

[efcfanwirral]

1 hour ago, SweepingTheNation said:

So the event is 18th-20th June, the PCR tests have to be taken five days later, and only after those are analysed will festivals know whether they can go ahead? That's cutting things very fine, and that's not even considering if the results are bad.

Yeah I'm not at all convinced this is for 2021,apart from maybe Reading and Leeds - just to show us that planning can go ahead for 2022

[incident]

1 hour ago, efcfanwirral said:

Yeah I'm not at all convinced this is for 2021,apart from maybe Reading and Leeds - just to show us that planning can go ahead for 2022

Around the same time as they announced this pilot, Festival Republic also said that the Latitude lineup will be released tomorrow at 10am.

While they didn't outright say "2021", it'd be one hell of a bait and switch if they actually mean 2022.

[efcfanwirral]

5 minutes ago, incident said:

Around the same time as they announced this pilot, Festival Republic also said that the Latitude lineup will be released tomorrow at 10am.

While they didn't outright say "2021", it'd be one hell of a bait and switch if they actually mean 2022.

They also announced a large scale commercial partner - I have a feeling that's tied to their financial viability to wait 

Other festivals don't have that - I think FR may get latitude and Reading over the line but the results will come too late for many 

I think I just meant 2022 for most festivals and the industry in general! 

[incident]

8 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

They also announced a large scale commercial partner - I have a feeling that's tied to their financial viability to wait 

Other festivals don't have that - I think FR may get latitude and Reading over the line but the results will come too late for many 

I think I just meant 2022 for most festivals and the industry in general! 

Don't think the announcement of a new sponsor is significant to anything - It's maybe a nice extra cushion, but unless they've somehow got a massively better deal than has previously been seen in the industry it won't be enough to swing a decision - LN already have much deeper pockets than any income brought in by the deal and they'll have taken their own risk analysis.

It's quite likely that some festivals without deep pockets still push ahead regardless as another postponement would kill them anyway, so the risk is worth it. On that basis I'm working to the assumption that anything within that hasn't cancelled more than ~8 weeks before gates opening is going to push ahead* despite the risk, as unless they're tiny they need to have contracts signed by then and they're not far off starting the actual build.

In the case of Latitude and the other festivals scheduled for the same weekend (WOMAD, Truck, Standon Calling), that 8 weeks pretty much starts today so I think they've all got a decent chance of happening.

*minor caveat on this is that it's quite possible some events have taken the decision to cancel but cynically decide not to say so until much later - I suspect that one of my festivals is doing this.

[gfa]

3 hours ago, Paul ™ said:

Rightly so.

I agree just annoying, kinda was hoping it would be a festival i could actually go to haha. Will save the issue of 500k people going after 10k tickets to be fair

[foolee]

If anyone has 2 spare pre-sale codes that they won't be using for this I'd be really grateful if you could DM them to me? Thanks in advance! 

[FakeEmpire]

6 hours ago, foolee said:

Do you think it'll be okay to train and taxi to the event as I don't have a car?

Also, You Me At Six will be playing.

They just announced that they are supporting BMTH on their arena tour so that might have been their announcement.

[foolee]

8 minutes ago, FakeEmpire said:

They just announced that they are supporting BMTH on their arena tour so that might have been their announcement.

Possibly, also announced for RAR 2022 today but an announcement of the year would most likely relate to a return to live music but we'll see Friday I guess. 

[SweepingTheNation]

12 hours ago, SweepingTheNation said:

So the event is 18th-20th June, the PCR tests have to be taken five days later, and only after those are analysed will festivals know whether they can go ahead? That's cutting things very fine, and that's not even considering if the results are bad.

As a caveat to this, the Telegraph report about the findings of the previous test events (which were officially confirmed yesterday) ran on Friday, the day after the post-event PCR tests for the last event were due, and the other second phase events run up to the same weekend so it may not be that much of an issue.