Indiependence Festival 2020

They just tweeted a few minutes ago that the announcement will be coming at 6pm today.

fourmations wrote: »

Bit of a tangent here but are you guys confident
that they will solve the sh*t-show that was last year?

Despite being interested in trying ATN since it started
I'm sticking with EP this year due to the issues last year,
I get the idea that the traffic is unsolvable unless they
build new roads!

not being negative but personally
i would not get over sitting in my car for hours
it would ruin the weekend

cheers

Plenty of discussion about this in the ATN and EP threads this year already but will try to distil my thoughts...

The traffic was a mess but I was lucky enough not to experience it. We sailed in and out on both sides without a hint of a delay. We left early, arrived early as did *plenty* of others.

There were minor issues inside - like the rubbish and the food queues - but they weren't unusual by the standards of any festival.

I think a lot of the minor issues that people had have been magnified by weather - it's a lot easier to laugh off a long queue for a burger when you're having pints in the sun with your friends but when you're sitting in the rain or stuck in a tent, it's miserable.

The weather is not the organisers' fault.

Most of the people I met at ATN last year were enjoying themselves. Even those who had been stuck in cars weren't talking about it by Saturday afternoon or Sunday. The Facebook comments, the media focus and the weeklong argument on Joe Duffy fuelled the conversation around it but I think it is a stretch to say it ruined weekends. Some people were wearing it as a badge of honour by the second day - "you made it in with no traffic? I got here at 10pm AND had six cans before Orbital started!"

The festival itself was fun - it was a nice size with a great crowd. I can't make it back for 2020 as I've something on that weekend but if the line-up was to my taste, I wouldn't have hesitated to go for a second.

And, finally, I don't think the traffic is unsolvable without roads. A lot of the issues seemed to stem from poor planning - a lack of park and ride options, poor directions being issued, and unprepared/slow staff on the parking side of things. A lot of that is easily resolved, I would think. If they opted to open the site on a Thursday night (I know, not always possible), they could remove another chunk of traffic too.

Damon Albarn is touring another project with musicians from Iceland next year so we won't see Gorillaz anyway.

callaway92 wrote: »

How can you say that when The Streets are headlining one of the nights, seriously?

Have you ever been? The festival has always attracted an 18-23 crowd.

In year's gone by, different nights have been headlined by acts like de La Soul, Manic Street Preachers, the Dandy Warhols, Ash, Basement Jaxx, Public Enemy 2 Many Djs, etc and the crowd has rarely changed much in terms of profile.

And while the Streets may headline one night, Sigrid is headlining another - a much younger crowd there.

Indie is a fine fest but there genuinely is nothing there other than the stages. It is bare bones and, as such, older crowd doesn't tend to head along as you don't get the array of stuff you get at EP, ATN, etc.

About 2/3 years ago, they even moved the stage start times later in the day - 5pm onwards - because the crowd spent the day drinking in the campsite so bands were playing to empty tents!!