Telephonic Witnness survey

beretta

Got a phonecall from some guy working for Witnness this afternoon, doing a survey about this years festival. Oh boy, did he get it. I vented all my anger, frustration and general aaaaargh-ness-osity about Witnness, and the phonecall lasted close to half an hour. I had a lot to complain about!!

Did anyone else on the board get such a phonecall? I'd love to know what others said.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

yellum

Bring it on Witnness, bring it on.

Maybe they gave up after your rant.

Silverfish

Uhhh....was I at the same festival??

What exactly is all the complaining about? There's a lot of it going on here, but no specifics. Just curious.

I know some people were complaining about traffic, but when 40,000 people converge on a small village, that really is to be expected. (Note: Slane last year. There's people still trying to get home from that.)
I myself ferried a few people there, and they complained the whole way. You can't expect everyone to just clear off and let you through.

The Phantom thing was a big, big disappointment. Money does not make the world go round, but it does make the ride easier for some. I won't say any more, I'll be moderated again.....

And finally, the weather just happens. Portaloos will be blocked. Prices will be outrageous. Bands will come on later than advertised. You will lose your wallet / mobile / sanity. You will drop your pint.

It was still a good day. We got to see great bands play great music, and thats what we all paid for.

Lunar Junkie

Maybe my expectations for these kind of things are stupidly low but I reckon this years Witness was close to being as good as these things get. Sure there were lots of little problems (and a few fairly big ones) but I don't think there was anything that would have ruined it outright. Gather tens of thousands of people in a field somewhere, throw in the randomness of technology and weather and there WILL be at least some chaos, there's no way round it. I don't want to whinge about it, I had fun overall... HOWEVER, if they are looking for suggestions for improvement I'll give them these:

1. queue management - there wasn't any, so to speak... particularly bad on the way in. There are ways of funnelling the movement of people along in an organised way so that everyone isn't just piling into the back of a big cluster that doesn't appear to be moving anywhere. The general lack of signposting was also pretty confusing.

2. bins - Again.. there weren't any. As far as I can see the merry chucking of crap over every square foot of mud was pretty much encouraged by the organisers. although this did have the advantage of creating a sort of platform to stand on which didn't sink 6 inches under your feet.

3. sound in the rising tent - indistinct, booming echoey mush. groups like the beta band and the redneck manifesto had a hard time getting the sublety of their music across... it can be done well: the radiohead tent gigs in punchestown a while back are a good example.

GerK

Well, I thought Witnness this year rocked, I have to say I think it was better organized last year, but I gues the weather played a big part in that.

The only major gripe I had was with an agressive bouncer.
They had let a few people into the pit from the left hand side of the stage during Jimmy Eat World (Woo Jimmy WOO WOO) and I was queing to see if I could get in too. Security then started saying we needed to move back .. which I did, and again, they said move back .. and agaikn I did .. at this stage I had moved from being 3 people from the barrier to 8 people back. A girl beside me commented on what a chump I was for moving back etc. and I laughed. The next thing I know some moustached bouncer starts shouting at me, "You think this is f ucking funny?" and "Are you a fu<king comedien?" and then he shoved me back. We argued, more security appeared, I explained myself to the senior guy and he diffused the situation. It coulda been worse, but it still left me VERY pissed off which tainted the rest of the Jimmy Eat World performance. I mailed my complaint to Witnness via their feedback for early last week, but haven't heard anything back from them. /rant

Other than that all the staff were friendly and helpful .. The food was a bit too expensive considering the crap you were getting (Noodles in Soy sauce with one slice of red pepper and 2 slices of cabbage is NOT worth €6) and there was too much of a walk to get to the Upstage. All in all very minor things.

johnnynolegs

yeah the security were the only thing i had hassle with during the whole gig - i was trying to get in on the left hand side aswlel for about an hour and a hlaf and eventually the guy just pointed at me and said "don't let him in " to the rest of the bouncers - eventually after getting very annoyed i left and went to the right hand side where i walked in after about 30 seconds waiting a lot more satisfying let me tell u .................ap[rt from that i thought the whole weekend was great but sadly as far as i can c people find it easier to complain about things on this board rather than praise them.................

Kurdt

i praise witnness this year!!! i have no complaints!!! and if i did i've forgotten due to the sheer joy i felt during the weekend

johnnynolegs

see that is the kind of attitude i wanna hear kurdt well done!!!!!!!!

GerK

Hey MY post was mostly praise! One incident with a bouncer!
Jeez, I sait it rocked didn't I

johnnynolegs

sorry gerk i agreed with u aswell that is what my post was about aswell i didn't mean u in your negative attitude..................