victorious 2022

[Jack01825]

Had a Great weekend! 

Toilets and Bar ques much improved so that was nice to see!

However my main gripes was the overcrowding Sunday and the 2 hours it took for us to get back each night to the campsite was ridiculous ! 1 bus every 10 mins or so and then at almost half 1 each night the all turned up at once! needs to get sorted 

[atomised]

33 minutes ago, Jack01825 said:

Had a Great weekend! 

Toilets and Bar ques much improved so that was nice to see!

However my main gripes was the overcrowding Sunday and the 2 hours it took for us to get back each night to the campsite was ridiculous ! 1 bus every 10 mins or so and then at almost half 1 each night the all turned up at once! needs to get sorted 

that seems at odds with our experience even Sunday night when we stayed til the end  admittedly we positioned ourselves at the back of the common stage arena. as the last firework went off we turned and walked swiftly, continued moving until 2 lines from the end of the queuing system as the last bus at the time left  thought we would have a while to wait but then another 5 or 6 arrived and we were on our way by 1130. this was with 2 very tired kids who I'm not sure appreciated the walking pace but we were happier with it this year than with last year's free for all

[Jack01825]

26 minutes ago, atomised said:

that seems at odds with our experience even Sunday night when we stayed til the end  admittedly we positioned ourselves at the back of the common stage arena. as the last firework went off we turned and walked swiftly, continued moving until 2 lines from the end of the queuing system as the last bus at the time left  thought we would have a while to wait but then another 5 or 6 arrived and we were on our way by 1130. this was with 2 very tired kids who I'm not sure appreciated the walking pace but we were happier with it this year than with last year's free for all

we were in the middle for sam fender and then met at the victorious photo mound for the rest of our group which probable meant we we in the last 5% of people queuing for the bus 😞 nevermind 

[atomised]

9 minutes ago, Jack01825 said:

we were in the middle for sam fender and then met at the victorious photo mound for the rest of our group which probable meant we we in the last 5% of people queuing for the bus 😞 nevermind 

fair enough  Sam Fender was great. glad you had a good weekend apart from the bus queue 

[Bubblepopelectric]

They will have to sort the shuttle buses out for next year as I doubt the local police and council were very happy about it tbh. Seems to be hit or miss on how long it took to get to and from each place. One of our group said it totally put her off going next year.

[seanz25]

2 hours ago, Bubblepopelectric said:

They will have to sort the shuttle buses out for next year as I doubt the local police and council were very happy about it tbh. Seems to be hit or miss on how long it took to get to and from each place. One of our group said it totally put her off going next year.

Agreed. We drove down and a journey that in the past has taken 40 mins, took us 2 hours Sunday. There was no coordination on keeping the traffic flowing down by the sea front/festival site. It was tailing back terribly.

[kelstar]

Here my thoughts on 2022. Sorry a long one!

I’m a Portsmouth Local, I live 0.5miles/15min walk from camp site. So I used local public transport & lifts from my dad, so I can not comment on the camp site or any of the park & ride services. 

I only attended Saturday & Sunday, so again I can’t comment on Friday.

I attended with family including children, met with various friends and other family members with children over course of weekend.

Personally our tastes are more chart music /old school pop with a little bit of well known chart indie/rock. Victorious over the years has mainly been old school indie/rock with a couple of pop acts. Which isn’t really our taste, but the festival has so much on offer, with local bands, kids area, so we enjoy wandering around, meeting friends and catching a few acts we know.

We attended every year since 2013. Out of interested, found my 2014 tickets in my email, and early bird tier 1 was £16.20 a day.

Victorious make mistakes every year, but I found they listen to general complaints and try to fix them. We had not enough toilets, the wrong type of toilets, not enough loo roll, not enough bars, not enough food places.

This year I was very excited for the festival, a comedy tent added something else, and we had a handful of pop acts which gave me something more to enjoy.

Generally I had a great time, and would go again as it’s on my doorstep and we have many friends & family who go. But it wasn’t it’s best year in my opinion. Victorious do tend to listen to complaints and try to improve, so fingers crossed they listen again.

Here are my issues/suggestions for improvements.

WiFi absolutely sucks, has done every year! This annoyed me personally due to a safety issue. As you arrive, to the family friendly festival, your kids are given a plain wristband which you write your phone number on. Yet there is no phone signal to call you if your kids go missing. Luckily my children are old enough and know the area for us to have a meeting point just in case. I know there are other reasons personal to you all but I thought I use this one as I have always found it ludicrous.

Stage/act planning:- Portsmouth loves to party. Pop & chart. Every time we have a pop or chart band in the area for bandstand or a music festivals they are packed, thousands turn up. Add in all the wonderful non locals coming along and a wrong stage, it’s a recipe for chaos. Which was seen on the castle stage. I think enough has been said, but I echo everyone’s options on the madness.

Comedy tent:- This was all wrong, Thousands turned up, and everyone wanted to see. As it was early, everyone we came across was generally patient and kind, but it was very busy. Also we had noise clashes. Music from the piano tree & kids area made it impossible to hear the comedy who were at the back making people leave.

Bigger/more video screens:- as we are with kids, we didn’t want to get in the thick of the crowds.  We preferred to sit towards the back. Unfortunately due to huge crowds, this was so far away at times, it was a bit difficult to see. Plus we noticed the sound system on the common stage was much louder this year. At one stage we sat were we sat last year with our kids, this year, it was impossible to hear each other. Not a complaint, just be better if we could sit in quieter areas and see a screen.

Toilets:- much improved from last year, but the castle stage toilets were filthy and unusable after 8pm. They need either more or cleaning if that’s possible. I’m not expecting perfect toilets, especially late on day 3 but I expect to be able to be able to use them.  One in five were just about useable. Luckily I took a she-wee, so we could at least try and have a wee!

Soft drinks:- At one stage we paid £4 for a can of Fanta! I expect ridiculous prices but £4 for a soft drink! (This was for my kids, not for me) living in Portsmouth I known Portsmouth water is yucky and chalky and is freely available. But it’s nice to give my kids a nice drink at times without selling a kidney.

Edited August 30, 2022 by kelstar

[Dorset]

45 minutes ago, kelstar said:

Plus we noticed the sound system on the common stage was much louder this year. At one stage we sat were we sat last year with our kids, this year, it was impossible to hear each other. Not a complaint, just be better if we could sit in quieter areas and see a screen.

Agree with all this! Phone signal non existent for me all day, we had a meeting point but nicer to have a phone option too.

Interesting your comments on Common sound - when we returned for Suede we felt it was a lot quieter than it had been earlier for Libertines - perhaps someone turned it down later in the day!

[retrokev]

9 minutes ago, Dorset said:

Agree with all this! Phone signal non existent for me all day, we had a meeting point but nicer to have a phone option too.

Interesting your comments on Common sound - when we returned for Suede we felt it was a lot quieter than it had been earlier for Libertines - perhaps someone turned it down later in the day!

phone signal for me was k for me castle and right bar facing stage.up and down everywhere else,with  a  lot of walking round with phone in air lol.sound on right seemed to be better on right than left,also may be  to which wind was blowing.

[atomised]

5 minutes ago, retrokev said:

phone signal for me was k for me castle and right bar facing stage.up and down everywhere else,with  a  lot of walking round with phone in air lol.sound on right seemed to be better on right than left,also may be  to which wind was blowing.

had very little issue with phone signal, able to send and receive messages fairly easily apart from the path from Common to Kids arena then another dead spot by comedy stage. 

[Bubblepopelectric]

I had no signal the whole time I was on the festival site - I am with with O2 if that makes a difference.

Another thing, why is there only one screen on one side on the Castle stage? Makes no sense considering the size of the crowds.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Bubblepopelectric

[kelstar]

We are Sky Mobile, and had nothing all day. We noticed any friends who had EE, tended to have a bit of signal…..funnily enough it was sponsored by EE!

normally signal is pretty decent in the area, but is absolutely appalling every Victorious.

[Jack01825]

I think Suede where a highlight for me but heard some people saying he was pissed off with the crowd? 

I thought this was just the way Brett puts on shows ?

[EssexIndie]

11 minutes ago, Jack01825 said:

I think Suede where a highlight for me but heard some people saying he was pissed off with the crowd? 

I thought this was just the way Brett puts on shows ?

Yeah exactly that. Everytime I've seen them Brett has that 'edgy' performing style. 30+ years of performing and still putting on a great show like that - I'd much rather see a frontman actually have some presence than go through the motions of being there. They were my highlight too - haven't seen them for a few years and they didn't disappoint. Would have confused the people that were only there for Fender though!

[atomised]

17 minutes ago, Jack01825 said:

I think Suede where a highlight for me but heard some people saying he was pissed off with the crowd? 

I thought this was just the way Brett puts on shows ?

I heard that but thought it was just Brett being Brett, was a great set

[kelstar]

2 hours ago, Dorset said:

Agree with all this! Phone signal non existent for me all day, we had a meeting point but nicer to have a phone option too.

Interesting your comments on Common sound - when we returned for Suede we felt it was a lot quieter than it had been earlier for Libertines - perhaps someone turned it down later in the day!

We mainly had an issue during Sugababes. As we didn’t go closer after that. We were quite far back, positioned ourselves between the bar & food stalls and could barely hear each other. Maybe it was just a few acts x 

[3Dimensions]

What was up with not being able to buy Red Bull at the bars? Was doing the fest sober this year and had to trek all the way to the Luczoade stand by the comedy tent for an energy drink!

[Jack01825]

wombats also a highlight! forgot to mention them 

Reytons and the K's were fantastic as always 

[johnl]

1 hour ago, Jack01825 said:

I think Suede where a highlight for me but heard some people saying he was pissed off with the crowd? 

I thought this was just the way Brett puts on shows ?

I’ve seen Suede over 30 times and I do feel Brett wasn’t enjoying himself. They are used to headlining smaller festivals and although there were plenty of Suede fans there, there were more getting in position for Fender. It’s no one’s fault, just the way it is at big Festivals. I think he was frustrated that he wasn’t getting a better reaction from the crowd. They were scheduled for an hour but only played 50 minutes. I suspect they ditched the encore. In hindsight they would have been better off headlining the Castle against Fender.

I still enjoyed their set but am much more looking forward to seeing a proper Suede gig at the Electric Ballroom in October.

[Musemonster]

Hi, we loved the festival more this year because of the line-up, apart from the car overheating on the way to the festival on Saturday, which put a bit of a dampener on it lol when we had to miss Pompeii, waited 3 hours for the RAC to turn up, got us back to where we were staying at 3am, back to the Festival for a great time on Sunday and then broke down on the way home on Monday morning and it's still stuck in a garage in Petersfield!

My Saturday Highlights: Sugababes, better than expected (there's always one song you don't get, so wanted Run For Cover!), We caught some of 19 Forever, they were great and got everyone singing along. Only The Poets were awesome and so were Crystal Tides - should be on Castle next year. Controversy here but heard Sports Team twice now, not doing it for me and neither were Inhaler, pretty basic. Wish we'd done The Subways instead! White Lies absolutely smashed it, and we got near front. The biggest shocker for me was the crowd for The Wombats... couldn't get anywhere near but found some outside space, they always deliver. Bastille were amazing as always, decided to watch the whole show from the top of the hill.

Sunday - Bearing in mind we didn't get home until 3am after car trouble - Example and DJ Wire was an absolute treat! Suddenly crash-landed into Ibiza at 1.15pm... that set the whole mood for the day! For us, it wasn't about trying to get to each stage like the day before, it was about just wandering round and taking in stuff. No idea who the Human Beatboxer was on the Lucozade Stage - he was off the chart! When you love a clash that somehow works - Embrace and Editors, we had time to get back for Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors and Munich! Went back for Sophie Ellis-Bextor - seriously didn't expect that big a crowd - I always thought Becky Hill was on the wrong stage. That's why we bailed, before Nothing But Thieves - gutted. I wouldn't say it was getting dangerous, but it was getting packed.

 

[Sam217]

Hey guys, I hope you all enjoyed the weekend as much as I did.

I was lucky enough to review the festival for When The Horn Blows. If anyone has a minute to give it a read the link is here!

https://whenthehornblows.com/content/2022/9/3/festival-review-victorious-festival-2022

[Bubblepopelectric]

5 hours ago, Sam217 said:

Hey guys, I hope you all enjoyed the weekend as much as I did.

I was lucky enough to review the festival for When The Horn Blows. If anyone has a minute to give it a read the link is here!

https://whenthehornblows.com/content/2022/9/3/festival-review-victorious-festival-2022

Nice review! 

[Dorset]

11 hours ago, Sam217 said:

Hey guys, I hope you all enjoyed the weekend as much as I did.

I was lucky enough to review the festival for When The Horn Blows. If anyone has a minute to give it a read the link is here!

https://whenthehornblows.com/content/2022/9/3/festival-review-victorious-festival-2022

A bit gutted didn't stay at Castle to see NBT reading that. Saw them last year for the first time and thought they were ace, but opted to see Suede instead, who were good but with the crowds moving from stage to stage missed some of the set & then what I could see/hear felt quiet. Anyway, first world problems! Great review 🙂

[retrokev]

nightmare trying to find somewhere to stay next year. dont know if its because not taking bookings yet or already sold out,which is suprising as lots dont book until a line up announced .anyone knowing of anywhere to stay under £800,would appreciate the help .cheers. ibis and ibis budjet seem to be all that are left.

[sisco]

44 minutes ago, retrokev said:

nightmare trying to find somewhere to stay next year. dont know if its because not taking bookings yet or already sold out,which is suprising as lots dont book until a line up announced .anyone knowing of anywhere to stay under £800,would appreciate the help .cheers. ibis and ibis budjet seem to be all that are left.

You tried calling Royal Maritime Club?  Much much cheaper calling rather than online.  Our family room, 3 nights B&B was £544

Edited September 6, 2022 by sisco