By Rose Callaghan
My friend Katherine and I were unlucky enough to attend the LED (London Electronic Dance) festival yesterday. Unfortunately we purchased 2 day tickets so we’re going again today, although I’m asking for my money back for yesterday.
1. Don’t publish set times. Anywhere. Force your poor receptionist to answer queries about playing times all day long.
2. Charge 5 pounds for set times upon entrance to the festival
3. Change set times with no notice, so people’s programs are rendered completely useless even though they literally just stepped foot in the festival and paid 5 pounds for them.
4. Fail to mention that advertised acts are playing a DJ set, not playing as a band.
5. Use twitter to pump up fans on how “epic” your festival is going to be, but fail to mention that you’ve cancelled some of your biggest acts just four days before the festival, presumably because of low ticket sales (Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Kim Fai, AN21 and Max Vangeli).
This event is being run by AEG Live who should known a thing or two about putting on live music by now. I really hope today is a massive improvement because this is a big disappointment for my first UK music festival.
WHINGE OVER!
In other news, I am very much looking forward to these guys:
Lucy Lu and I could have told you a thing or two about how terribly UK festivals are run. We were thinking of creating an efficiency consultancy for this reason; we would have made a mint if the Poms cared. Their only saving grace is the calibre and quantity of the bands.
What, the guys from Earthcore have moved to the UK?
Jacqui, I’ve been to 3 more festivals since this and I have to say I agree!
And then at the Berlin festival they freaked out about the crowds at the festival – we never got to see Fever Ray and then they cancelled 2 Many DJs and Fatboy Slim.
What’s more they told everyone to hang onto their wrist bands because they were trying to organise another concert to make up for the cancellations. to be honest i think festival organisers in Germany in general are a bit overly cautious since Love Parade