non-Essential chaos?

A lot has been said about the troubles encountered by some at last weekends Essential Festival in Bristol. We were there for all three days, have an awful lot of festival experience, and hope that we can present a balanced – if a little long – view.

We first became aware of the cancellations early on Friday, when alerted to a news article on the BBC website, dated Thursday afternoon. We contacted the Essential press office, and were sceptical about the "waterlogged" reason given then (particularly as it was only effecting the middle day), but they insisted it was true.
We phoned the licensing council (North Somerset), and although not able to speak to the person directly responsible for the event, his colleague was not aware of the council imposing restrictions due to a safety risk.
Later we spoke to Essential boss Ish Ali, who again assured us that waterlogging was the true reason, and told us further that the decision had been taken on advice from his own safety experts.
We hadn't visited the site recently, and so weren't able to dispute this reason further.

When we arrived at the site on Saturday lunchtime, the first thing we did was a thorough walk around to check out the state of the ground. Around the largest tent – at the top of the hill – the ground was very firm – no problems. At the far end of the site (ignoring the muddy area caused by water taps) there were some very soft, spongy underfoot, spots of ground. Although these areas looked totally dry, had it rained over the weekend (which it thankfully didn’t) these areas would have caused problems – how much we can't say.

On Sunday, we were (maybe not) surprised to see the main tent – on top of the hill – shut because of the safety risk from waterlogging; we cannot believe that to be true. The second shut tent was further down the slope, and could – possibly – have suffered in the event of rain.

With us on Sunday was a personal friend, who also happens to work in one of the Bristol ticket outlets. He told us that he had sold (personally) only one ticket for Sunday, while he'd sold over 20 each for the other two days. Although this proves nothing, it indicates to us that ticket sales were poor.

We spoke to Essential this afternoon – they still insist that the cancellations were due to the safety risk from waterlogging.

Now the bands...
On Saturday Busta Rhymes was late to arrive. Essential tell us that this was due to Busters... erm... poor knowledge of how far Bristol was from London – essentially a cock-up outside of Essential's control. Essential tells us that as soon as they were aware of the problem, they contacted the council and gained a license extension to give enough time for Buster to arrive, and still perform his full set. We've not been able to verify this, but if true, Essential should be commended for doing everything possible.

Sunday was the worst affected day. Two full stages had been cut, with some popular bands removed. It appears that the cancellations were known two weeks before. Programmes with the incorrect line-up were still being sold (but, it must be said, the programmes were only £3, had good [if sometimes irrelevant in the circumstances] band info, etc. – it was much better than what's offered by most other large festivals). But, on every entrance to every tent, there were the new running orders on display. Some of these did disappear during the day – but only when taken by the selfish for their own use (we saw it happen 4 times).

As we say on this website here, festivals aren't the place to go and see one band. Sure, if you bought your ticket to see a particular band who then don't play for any reason, you're bound to be disappointed. A gig would be cancelled in such circumstances, and the ticketholder offered a refund. But festivals are a bit different; the line-up isn't all about one band. In this case, the main headliners (Supergrass) did still appear, as did most of the original line-up. It's unfortunate that so many bands had to be cut, and that it included some popular bands. Our belief is that Essential were being practical in cutting costs for a day which had had poor ticket sales – the weight of those extra costs could have possibly threatened the whole event - with the likelihood of no refunds!

Essential tell us that the bands that were missing on Monday – De La Soul, Doug E Fresh, Phaorahe Monch and others, were not cancelled by Essential, but the acts pulled out for their own reasons. Other acts were booked in place in some instances, though arguably of lower attraction.

Attendance
Essential claims that both the Dance and Roots Days were sold out, but were unable to give any figures for the Rock Day.
From our own very unscientific estimations, we guess that around 10,000 were present for the Dance Day, around 7,000 for the Rock Day, and around 20,000 for the Roots Day.
Essential should be commended for handing out the "come to the Rock Day for £15" vouchers to people leaving on Saturday – it ensured enough people were present to give a good atmosphere. We understand that anyone paying full price will be a bit miffed having paid more... but nobody expects to go back into a shop a week after buying something, see the same thing cheaper, and expect to be paid back the difference.

So... what could have Essential have done better?
As it appeared that they knew two weeks in advance that many bands were not playing, they should have made this information widely available, updated their website and info-line to reflect this, and included a sheet with the new line-up in the programmes.
They should have offered refunds at this point – we suspect the impact would have been small, and wouldn't have resulted in all the bad publicity it gained.

We will continue to cover Essential?
Yes, but with reservations.
Essential put on events like no other festival, getting – even this time – diverse, quality line-ups, of a type not seen at other events.
We believe that Essential took the actions they felt they had to do to protect themselves. But we also believe it was all done in completely the wrong manner.

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