Festival Guide 2013

Jeden

Hi,

Cards on table, I setup the website Festivals.ie with my brother last summer.

It's a no-profit affair, just a labour of love based on my own experiences enjoying festivals in my youth!

Recently re-designed it to make it a bit more friendly on mobiles.

The point of the site is to try and make which festivals you want to go to a bit easier to decide and hopefully to discover new festivals.

Seems like there are a few festival fans in this area of Boards, so some people might enjoy the site and get some benefit from it, which is the aim.

Any feedback on what would be useful for a festival goer to add would be appreciated.

Cheers.

old gregg

I looked at the site last year and saw that there were plenty of large enough European festivals not included. It seems to be just the same listing. For example, in Hungary and Romania there are several large Psychedelic dance festivals not included. Many of the European metal festivals are not included, etc.

It doesn't even include the Electric Picnic in Ireland which is bizarre. Spraoi in Waterford is not included, it sort of goes on like that.

Seems like an idea that needs some considerable research/work before it becomes a useful resource of use to people. At the moment it's sort of empty.

Jeden

Thanks for feedback.

You're right in that there are plenty of festivals not there, but the aim isn't really to cover all the festivals in all the countries in Europe, that would be fairly daunting!

What I'm hoping to do is cover most of the popular Irish one's well. The one's in the UK less extensively and then just the big one's in Europe (although some promoters in Europe have added smaller festivals to the site and always happy for people to do that).

Electric Picnic official site is showing last year's info, when it's announced it will be added. Interesting actually because big UK and European festivals announce their festivals way in advance and take advantage of Christmas market by offering discounts, could be something for their Irish counterparts to take note of.

This is the page for Electric Picnic last year all the lineup details etc.

The site's a work in progress, but just a hobby for me. If a few hundred people use it and get some value out of it then that's a result!

Wrongway1985

I'm afraid I'm with old gregg here nice idea of course but needs surgery for starters you have a filter for what type of festival music, comedy, sport etc. maybe you should just focus on one interest and not lob them all in the one basket, take music if you had a filter of what type of music fan a particular festival is aimed at might be more beneficial and already mentioned the obvious some key festivals nowhere to be seen. Maybe this thread here might give you ideas to take on board, best of luck with the future of the site it would be great to be visiting it in the future but in its current state I think I'll pass.

Jeden

It's actually refreshing to get some negative feedback. Family and friends all just tell you 'it's great' which may give you a fleeting ego boost, but is ultimately fairly useless in improving the site.

The nature of festivals and how and when artists are announced means that mid January isn't a great time. There are a few around JDIFF, Paddy's Day, Cheltenham, but the big music festivals, the main festival season, really only cranks into gear in April and by then I think the site will be up to speed.

What I think is useful is the ability to search by an artist - say "Blur" and it will show you the festivals in Ireland, UK and Europe that they're playing. So you can plan a holiday in a European country and catch them live at a festival. Also possible to subscribe to a festival you know you're going to, so if you already have tics to Glastonbury (sold out now!), you can subscribe to Glastonbury on the site and as artists are added on Festivals.ie you get an email to let you know. There's a few other features like this which I think are of use and a few in the pipeline.

Also, new site design just went live in the past few days, so a few bugs to work through (searching is actually down at the moment!)

Now if I can just convince all the promoters to offer me a 50% discount to sell their tickets, I'm set fare to have Zuckerberg looking over his shoulder!

Thanks again for comments.

Toast

I think there is a need for a good festival related chat that people can sit in and obsess over festivals together in real time. I went as far as registering a domain and setting up a mibbit pointing towards an IRC channel for this purpose and then never really put any effort into promoting it (other sites to be concentrating on tbh) and the domain lapsed. It wouldn't take much effort for you to setup and link something similar from your site. It does require a bit of effort to keep moderated and live but if you launch it at the same time as a big announcement it could pick up some popularity.

bodhrandude

I agree with Toast, Ireland needs an Irish version of the Efestival festival forums, as well as some festivals having their own forums already, you could have a bunch of the smaller to mid size festivals in a particular forum. Would like to contribute occasional reviews too and some point. Keep it up Jeden.

melekalikimaka

bodhrandude wrote: »

I agree with Toast, Ireland needs an Irish version of the Efestival festival forums, as well as some festivals having their own forums already, you could have a bunch of the smaller to mid size festivals in a particular forum. Would like to contribute occasional reviews too and some point. Keep it up Jeden.

we dont have enough festivals for that, lets be honest, asid3e from oxegen and ep there isnt really anything, knocken is quite the cliche festival, probably has its own underground forum somewhere, no place like dome and other smaller ones wouldnt really merit forums. TBH boards would cover things, and the efestivals does things nicely.

This site seems like a efestivals, with more focus on ireland... but not really covering ireland enough, maybe if they focused just on ireland to get things going before moving outside

Jeden

Yeah I kind of agree with the sentiment that boards look after the forum aspect quite well. The difficulty in moderating and initially stimulating threads that are active is a whole massive piece of work I'd rather not get into, let alone the technical aspect of building a forum. There's a lot in it and Boards does it well.

What I will try and do is stimulate reviews and ratings, which I think will be very useful once I can start the ball rolling and get traction. Unfortunately that's not easy, but it's something of major value and easier than managing a forum IMO.

It's a fair point on focusing on Ireland, but the reason I started the site is years previously I wanted to travel around Europe and plan trip around festivals. There wasn't a good site to do that on at the time. I think the map and calendar are quite a good way to lay out this info clearly, but ultimately it's not that important what I think (which is why I've posted this thread!).

The big artists tend to tour around the big festivals across Europe and seeing as me and my friends have gone to these festivals, I thought them relevant to an Irish audience (cheap flights these days etc).

Thanks for all the feedback, this weekend I will be mostly adding Irish festivals to the Festivals.ie!

Any more thoughts welcome....

Jeden

Electric Picnic 2013 in all it's glory!

Early Bird Tickets will be available, we have a feature where you can set a reminder a few days before the early bird offer expires.

Unfortunately, quite a few festivals don't set a fixed end date, they just announce there's an offer and stop it after they have sold 'x' amount of discount tickets.

A good few do though, including EP in previous years, so it was a feature worth developing I think.

Interesting to see what kind of lineup EP can attract. I always feel somewhat underwhelmed by the lineup compared to the size of the profile of the festival overall....

Still a great festival and so much more going for it in addition to the music. More sunshine for this year would be nice......

nocoverart

OP, for a person who clearly knows about festivals, what's your bestest festist music festival in the whole world?

Toast

I was actually talking about a real time chat based on IRC rather than forums. For the super obsessive. I think it would have to be international to have enough users to make it work. I know in the summer months I used to be cycling around various sites for news on festivals constantly and would have loved to have somewhere to write my theories and findings that wasn't as permanent as a forum.

Jeden

Ah right, I see Toast, maybe something for us to look at a little further down the road.

I've been surprised by the number of artists that have got in touch looking to be listed on the site so that's definitely something I'm going to add in the future.

The single most difficult thing I'm struggling with is a way of ordering ticket prices so that people can compare them across similar festivals. There are so many different types of ticket, multiple days, single days, discounts, VIP tickets etc that it's quite difficult to apply a single 'rule' to make a comparison fair. I know that this is something as a user that I'd like to be able to do.

For instance, if you want to go to a big music festival in Europe, your're not too bothered about where but you want to compare ticket prices across them all......I'd love to be able to offer that functionality.

niamhmw

Heard about this festival in Poland Przystanek Woodstock

(english links)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przystanek_Woodstock

http://www.facebook.com/groups/265347133582438/?fref=ts

(officail website)
http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/woodstock_festival

Its free and run by a charity!
You fly into Berlin which is an hour and a half drive (at the moment flights are approx e150)

Its the biggest open air festival in Europe, bands are mainly rock genre but also reggae, folk, alternative etc, it's all about peace love and music.

Looks amazing!

I'm going so see you there!

lordgoat

You really should have a piece on Coachella and Lollapalooza. Probably 2 of the biggest music festivals around. Primavera deserves a nod too as it's the first big festival of the summer.

Then you have Eurosonic and SXSW for 'emerging talent' and press shows.

Jeden

I hear ye LordGoat - I'm holding out on the site being a resource for all the biggest festivals in the world. Coachella is clearly a whopper festival that people in Ireland go to, likewise the burning man, but I think I'm spreading myself quite far covering festivals in Europe as it is.

My reasoning is that the site is for Irish people primarily and travelling to festivals in Ireland, UK and Europe is a lot less expensive than going to USA (even tho plenty of people still do).

In time, I might decide to go down the USA route, but I'd like to do it in a somewhat meaningful way rather than just having 3 or 4 big ones, coz if you start out in USA you probably have to have at least 10-15 festivals to make it worthwhile.

What I've been very pleased with is the number of festivals that the general public have added, probably 25% or so of the total and if people go to the trouble of adding a festival (as long as it's not spammy), I'll always approve that and get it live on the site.

Big plans for Festivals.ie this year, but gotta hole up and do all the ground work first.

WoollyRedHat

Stumbled on your website last week. I like it, functionality is good, and map feature appealing.

One aspect I would suggest adding that I saw elsewhere when festivals were being mentioned in an article was an "Extend your holiday" basically recommending places nearby you can go to/ visit if you wish to stay longer in Belgium, Croatia, France, or whichever country the festival is in. Just a piece in other words of people wishing to enjoy the area outside the festival limits when it's over.


Article I was referring to here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/apr/20/best-summer-music-festivals-europe

Jeden

That's a great article Wooly - I tweeted it! Got me thinking about a few ideas too....thanks!

WoollyRedHat

No probs, glad to help, and thanks for the site.