lurksalot Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 small scale suits me much better, In Chester we have a few street type music festivals which work really well , and a couple of pubs put on outdoor afternoon/evening shows with any number of local bands , all free entry, drinks at normal bar prices , they are excellent , and while you don't get mahoosive high flying band names appearing , you dont need mahoosive TV screens to see the stage , so you can go home and watch the big name DVDs to get the full effect We do have Chester Rocks though , Chester Pops is more like it , but the kids love it , a decent introduction to a proper outdoor stage type 2 day festival , no camping and the like though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Even the better beer festivals have camping here... and people will travel quite a way and pay £25 tops, for weekend entry, inc campsite and have a great time. No real H/L's which mean anything if you don't know the 'local' bands but still worthwhile, IME. This is becoming quite a market as many bands can't step up enough but any of the festivals that do this well/better can afford to pay better than pub money.. and you get a better/stage and P.A/light set-up as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntLockyer Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 We played a 300 person one last year (I think) perfect size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Admiral Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 (edited) I have to say the best festival ive been to was last year's Shrewsbury FolkFestival. Limited to 8500, great food, safe and convenient parking and camping and some awesome talent, with superb Beer and food at reasonable prices. Clean toilets too. I speak as a veteran of some 80s metal festival shockers and no-one want to go back to that nightmare - although the bands were generally great! Edited January 25, 2015 by The Admiral Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hairychris Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 [quote name='TheRev' timestamp='1422130763' post='2669121'] Lots iof small ' boutique' festivals around the UK these days though. Much better for seeing the sort of bands you like. Big festivals have gone too mainstream I reckon. [/quote] Very much this. The larger mainstream UK festivals seem to have jumped the shark when it comes to ticket pricing vs event quality. European festivals are significantly less expensive, more punter-friendly, and far less annoyingly commercialized/sponsored/etc. The UK has fantastic smaller festivals - in the noisy music scene Desertfest (multiple venues in Camden over a weekend) and Damnation (one day at Leeds Uni which is madness but great fun) are doing it right, as is Temples Festival in Bristol and a bunch of other folks doing similar things. Having a tighter focus on the music means that smaller events can get in acts that wouldn't make it to a larger festival simply because those fests need to get more people through the door to break even. I suppose that I can also break out my old-man excuses about not wanting to sleep in a tent if I can possibly help it but that's a whole other topic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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