Bluedot 2023

[onemoresolo]

We’ve decided to bail this morning. The site is a mess and I can’t face another evening of pouring rain as forecast and then trying to get out tomorrow.

[zahidf]

 

 

[WFD]

We were there on day tickets yesterday. We had what turned out to be a stroke of luck by getting turned back from the main car park (which had filled up) into the overspill one next to the campervans. This meant we were parked not too far from the exit track, so we got onto the track with a push from two stewards and then out ok from there.  Seemed like there was a lot of rain still coming down during the night so can imagine how bad things got overnight.

Had a good day despite the weather and hope they have better luck with it next year.

[emmanuel]

2 hours ago, zahidf said:

 

 

I understand closing car access but it is rather odd they are not allowing people to walk in on foot. 

[onemoresolo]

I suppose you let a few people on foot who genuinely arrived from nearby and then you’ll get selfish idiots abandoning cars etc, blocking roads and walking in.

[TheNewUnion]

Live relativley local to the site, only about half an hour away (can see it from the hill near ours) and it's been absolutely lashing it down for the last 3 hours or so. Might be a messy one getting out tomorrow, safe travels everyone, hope you're home, warm and dry at a reasonable hour!

[Neil]

8 hours ago, emmanuel said:

I understand closing car access but it is rather odd they are not allowing people to walk in on foot. 

they get impossible to identify. it might also be cos of bad ground conditions on site.

[faymondo]

12 hours ago, onemoresolo said:

We’ve decided to bail this morning. The site is a mess and I can’t face another evening of pouring rain as forecast and then trying to get out tomorrow.

Done the same but had a cracking two days there despite conditions. We moved the car on Saturday to by the tracks and that done the business. A couple of cars already stuck at 8.30am awaiting a tractor !!

[faymondo]

My musings on the two days at the festival.

 

"Bluedot 2023 review”

https://wp.me/pzmxh-2Ut

[onemoresolo]

1 minute ago, faymondo said:

Done the same but had a cracking two days there despite conditions. We moved the car on Saturday to by the tracks and that done the business. A couple of cars already stuck at 8.30am awaiting a tractor !!

Yeah, I had serious anxiety about getting trapped on Monday plus my back really suffers squelching about in the mud. They’d done way better this year adding seating areas etc but festivals were you can’t sit for a bit to watch the bands because of weather are pretty brutal. 

[theciderviking]

Car parks were rough this morning! I managed to get out with a push from some incredibly kind fellas who were also stuck and awaiting a tow, made it into the office for 09:40.

Absolutely bloody amazing festival, even if I went far too hard after my shift on the last day 🙈 but by far the wettest I’ve ever known! 
 

[Clakus]

Well, I really, really enjoyed that. I loved last year and would probably put this year up at the same level. There were some really surreal runs that just sum up how eclectic and inventive the line-up is in comparison to other, similarly sized festivals. Saturday, going from Nish Kumar to Pavement to 2ManyDJs (all of whom were great) and then Sunday going from Adam Buxton to Grace Jones (!!!) to Scalping... it's just brilliant. 

100% feel for the poor souls who had day tickets for the Sunday - and have a feeling the announcement should probably have been made earlier - but if our experience getting out of the car park is anything to go by then it was most likely the right call. I can imagine it being absolute chaos in the rain trying to get out last night. Overall I'm not sure there's an awful lot more that could have been done with regards to weather and the mud etc. Certainly not going to hold it against the organisers.

As others have noted earlier on in this forum, the site is prone to sound bleed from stage to stage which isn't ideal. BC Camplight in particular had a hard time of it when trying to play a solo song on the keyboard. They made a joke out of it though - and handled it very well in my opinion. Enjoyed their set too.

It's a difficult situation really because the flip side of the coin is that the vast majority of sets I saw had really good quality, nice, loud sound. For example, I had friends at Wide Awake festival who said Black Country, New Road's set was butchered completely by the poor sound there. Absolutely no such problems here in my opinion. But then perhaps the drawback from that is the current layout of the site can't handle it and you end up with sound bleed during the quieter moments. I'm not really sure how it works, but that's my thinking anyways. 

Was pleased to see the Notes tent bigger than last year.

Beer prices are extortionate as expected but it almost seems irrelevant with such a... ahem... laissez-faire security policy entering in and out of the arena. 

Highlight: Pavement

Lowlight: The grown man in the camp across from us who spent all weekend belching like an eight year old.

Surprise package: Either David Nutt's talk on Psychadelics, Nish Kumar (who I already liked but never really thought was that funny), or BEAK>, who I had only briefly listened to but completely smashed their set on the Orbit stage.

 

 

 

[Memory Man]

We left site sat afternoon to go for a pub lunch and thankfully left the original car park and got put back in the overflow / campervan field upon our return. The latter was a breeze and would surely have done fine for the sunday day ticket-ers if they could all have fitted in there, which they may well not have.

glad we didnt have to leave the original car park monday morning as imagine we might have needed a tow.

twitter showing campervan owners waiting 3 hours to be towed out this morning.

overall think organisers did what they could but it was a battle they could never win. If you had decent wellies ot walking boots it was overall not actually that bad, although a bit hard work by sunday afternoon / evening

i think the fact it was somehow basically dry 1-7pm saturday and all day sunday till it got dark was quite lucky. It could actually have been a bit worse and there was no thunder & lightning causing a show stop or anything like that.

i do wonder how glastonbury would cope at its now capacity and size in weather like that…. (It wouldnt)

[onionterror]

Well work isn't fun this morning but that was a great weekend despite the weather. Sunday in particular was fantastic - a brilliant run of stuff that kicked off in the afternoon with Dr Buckles Bowie Bug, then Young Fathers were great, the Max Cooper 3D AV thing was mind bendingly amazing, then I caught the last 30 mins or so of Grace before finishing off with Scalping, who were outstanding. 

We had to get towed off the car park on Monday morning but that was relatively painless - it probably took 15 minutes from realising we were stuck and putting our hazards on to being towed by a tractor, it was all very efficient and well organised when I was fearing we'd be waiting hours. 

[Nickyboy]

Pretty grim mud levels I thought. Up there with Glasto 97 in my experience. The rain was relentless most evenings and overnight. Site was very quiet Sunday night for Grace Jones and again another deluge. However, some great sets amongst the carnage. Really enjoyed CMAT, Django Django, Sorry, Pavement, Dry Cleaning, Young Fathers, Leftfield, Teleman. Some of the science talks were great too. We were in Boutique camping this year, but the mud levels were awful there too. I think some blame can be layed at the organizers door though. The forecast was dire beforehand and there should have been much more foresight and preparation for that. Most measures seemed reactive rather than proactive and all the areas around the toilets particularly were a disgrace. They need to learn some serious lessons from how Glastonbury manage mud years

[Memory Man]

I doubt there was much in the budget for wet weather protection beforehand since it hadnt sold well. Even areas with loads of chipping down still got bad. Sometimes its just a mud bath and theres nothing you can do. Glasto 07 was much worse as you get thick clay type mud down there that sticks.

its not meant to be this consistantly wet in july!

[Rorebore]

Yep, traumatically wet,  but a great weekend with some great moments. I thought they coped pretty well with ridiculous levels. The Orbit stage worked really well. As long as you were on the woodchip, the Lovell stage was fine. I'll definitely go next year. Highlights included Roisin Murphy, Leftfield, Grace Jones, Max Cooper, Go!  Team, Snapped Ankles, but my top 2 were Young Fathers and Beak>.

My one complaint would've been to open up more access points from camping to stages, so the pinch points didn't become the quagmires they were.  Then again, I'm not sure anything could've prevented the mud after that amount of rain.

VIP village was a complete waste of money. Any who didn't do it. You missed nothing.  Unless they improve it greatly, I'd give that a miss next year. Will definitely not be wasting money on this add-on again. 

In spite of the torrent that was an absolute blast! Great line up, great staff, good food, right sized site, good crowd, toilets well kept. I got out of the car park within 2-3 minutes. My friends in Campervan got out in 25 minutes from putting on hazards, so pretty good all round.

Well done Bluedot. In the most trying circumstances, you still put on a great festival. 

[onemoresolo]

I really missed the old layout where you could walk around the back of the Lovell to where the old Mission Control tent was. It was also a shame that moving the Lovell stage forward meant there was less sound bleed to the campsites - it was always quite nice heading back to the tent in the afternoon for a bit but being able to hear the main stage.

My guess is the revised site was down to ticket sales. If they are back to the old numbers next year, it would be great to keep Mission Control where it is now but move Nebula down to the old Mission Control site. It would spread the foot traffic out a bit and help a lot with sound bleed between the music stages.

[onemoresolo]

29 minutes ago, Aggy Huggy said:

Local villages were yet again disrupted - there is no excuse for the loud music - ticket sales down over 10,000 and it all depends on whether the land owners want the mither of complaints by neighbours or the utter mess and carnage their land was left in 

 

My experience of the locals when trying to organise events in the local area is they’re the biggest load of moaning NIMBYs so I’m not at all surprised by this take. It’s four days, one of which ends early, and you have a year’s notice if you want to give it a swerve.

[czuk]

So if I was pissed off with a local festival with it's loud lousy music and the sleepless nights and disrupted days it gives me, the first thing I would do would be to post my complaints on a web forum DEDICATED to festivals, because I'm sure I'd get a sympathetic response from the users on there.  Effing idiot nimby

[scatteredscreens]

1 hour ago, Aggy Huggy said:

Maybe next year you can have it on your doorstep - sleepless nights - disrupted days - over priced and to boot lousy music 

Bet you're great at parties.

[collectivisedfarming]

3 hours ago, Aggy Huggy said:

Next year on your doorstep ..... give the locals a rest ???

I have six days of festivals and loud music across the road from where I live. Unlike you I don't whine about it like a little bitch.

[onemoresolo]

It’s ok, I’m sure OP never goes to gigs, sporting events, food/drink festivals or any other large gathering given the disruption they cause for people.

[David_303]

6 hours ago, Aggy Huggy said:

Next year on your doorstep ..... give the locals a rest ???

Stop being miserable, it's only once a year. Jesus wept. You sound like a nightmare TBH. 

[cerysj]

Does anyone know who books the music at Bluedot - looking to interview them