Tuesday, August 22, 2006

NOT V HAPPY

As people start to return home and fire up their computers, it seems not everyone had a good time at V, with grumbles about queues, safety and prices.

One festival-goer, Chris Ralph, from Exeter, told the BBC News website that buying a £10 programme was the only way to find out which bands were playing where and when.

"How do they get away with treating people like this?" he said.


V's response?

The V spokesperson said the charge was for a programme, laminate, and plastic rucksack.

"Previously, programmes and laminates were sold separately, at a greater price," she added.


That's slightly missing the point, isn't it? Apart from suggesting that getting a plastic bag sweetens the deal, making people fork out another tenner on the top of the ticket price does look awfully like the sort of profiteering that people would have been shot for during the war.

Other people complained about having their drinks taken off them:

Fans also reported having their own supplies of water being confiscated at the festival. They say they were charged £2 for bottles inside the site.

"The organisers should be a little less greedy," he said.

However, the V festival spokesperson said: "The only drinks security confiscate at the entrance to the arena is alcohol and tampered plastic bottles."

She added that water was available free of charge from standpipes and that people were encouraged to bring plastic bottles with them to refill.


But if alcohol is being sold freely inside, why should people not be allowed to take their own alcohol in to the site? There's absolutely no logic to that, other than that of the profiteer.

Burgers, by all accounts, cost seven quid. And we're guessing they weren't the sort Tom Archer sells from his quality van.

So, are V abashed?

A spokesperson added: " We will of course bear in mind [these] comments as we continue our planning for next year's festival.

"However, judging by the fact that phone lines have been inundated since tickets for V Festival 2007 went on sale this morning, it seems that the vast majority of the 150,000 attendees had a thoroughly good time."


But people buying tickets doesn't mean they're the people who went this year and had a brilliant time; indeed, you might wonder if V wasn't so keen to get the tickets for next year on sale before people had a chance to find out about the four-hour queues for cashpoints from the customers who went this year.

[Earlier: Girls Aloud V barrier crisis
V confirmed artists 2006
V2005]


5 comments:

ian said...

I'm not defending V, but isn't there some rule about taking your own booze onto licensed premises. It's not as if V is the only festival that do this.

What is this anyway? Fans complaining V is too commercial? Well, duh!

Anonymous said...

I camped at the Weston Park site this year. Laughably poor security, toilets that weren't cleaned all weekend (unusable by Saturday morning!) due to 'weather issues'.

The demand to pay £10 just to find out when bands were playing was the final straw.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised that it's only now that V festival-goers have started to complain - the V festival has been set up like this for as long as I can remember.
When I lived in Essex, I was mates with the festival chaplain. We used to set up a caravan by the "dance" tent (the JJB tent) and annoy the festival organisers in two ways:
1) Our site passes were laminates with the running orders of the bands printed on it, and we used to give out this info for free; and
2) We would give free drinks to anyone, but especially people coming out of the dance tent. To not give people access to drinking water after they've been dancing in a cramped hot environment is simply negligent.

Anonymous said...

sorry, this sounds like every festival i've ever been to (except glastonbury, and it has different problems). and i've been to quite a few.

not saying it's good.. just that nothing is new.

Anonymous said...

Every festival is like V you say?... I've been to Reading festival every year, and went to it the weekend after V. I printed out the line-up on their site beforehand (V did not offer this facility), and it took me 2 minutes to get a drink, this is the same every year.. why are there queues at V and not at Reading? The toilet queue at V was actually quite scary at one point as people started to get angry. There's simply too many people there. Me and my friends said under no circumstances would we go back to V again.

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.