GreenMan
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Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 22, 2008, 19:44
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Thank you so much for coming, the festival would be nothing without you and the special vibe you bring to it. Overall we are really pleased how this year’s event went although we are very disappointed in the weather which has been a problem for many festivals across the country this summer.
We do read the boards and your opinions are very useful to us in planning next year's event. At the moment we are not in a position to answer all your queries or to say what changes will be made to the site in 2009, but rest assured all the feedback here will be taken into account.
Although the majority of feed-back has been positive some people have commented that they feel we did not do enough to prevent the mud this year. Last year we learnt that when you have heavy rain there is very little you can do. Wood chips and hay certainly do not work whilst it’s still raining and are only effective when the ground dries out a bit, when they can gain some sort of purchase. We dropped digger loads of woodchip last year and it achieved very little apart from damaging the ground, which led to many of the layout changes this year. We did have wood chips and hay set aside and if the weather had improved a little we would have laid them but it didn’t.
That does not mean we are resigned to doing nothing, we are committed to Glanusk Park and your enjoyment of the festival and each year carry out site developments to improve the drainage and access. However we are determined to remain an independent festival and this means we do not have infinite resources to invest in track or roadways like many of the larger festivals. We also strongly feel that although the conditions this year were very muddy, they were certainly no worse than many other UK festivals which have suffered adverse weather. Also none of the areas were cancelled or closed and the site was constantly monitored by our health and safety team and the local authorities.
We were very disappointed to hear about local contractors coming on to the site and charging for tow-outs, we were made aware of this late Monday morning and ejected them from site unless they agreed to be paid directly by us. We already had tractors onsite paid by us to tow people out for free and our site crew spent the day pushing people out of the car parks by hand.
We are not perfect but we do try very hard to make this into the very best festival we can, we are really sorry to all of you who were affected by the conditions, and are sure that 2009 will be even better.
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woodenrabbit
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 22, 2008, 20:01
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On behalf of the 22 people in my group I'd like to thank you for yet again organising an event that my friends are still thanking me for inviting them to. I have made critical points elsewhere, but that's more in a spirit of wanting the festival to be as perfect as possible :-). If any of the criticisms I have made are unjustified or unwarranted then I apologise to you unreservedly.
I am glad to read that the conduct of the tractor drivers were not condoned by you as organisers because I thought that was utterly wrong.
Maybe an idea would be to get a focus group of attendees from this year to see what THEY feel could be areas that could be improved upon which you as organisers maybe don't see (wood for the trees sort of thing).
I have heard from all of the people that were in my party and all of us WILL be returning next year and we hope to persuade even more people to come this time :-)
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Liability_B
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 22, 2008, 21:40
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More walkabout and indoor spaces pleeeeease. If ther are spaces foor people to sit, even if huddled, (I again refer to the Small World Stage), undercover, they do not have to continually walk about listlessly to keep warm, chruning up the earth as they go. If there are talented brightly coloured people making people smile and think, the weather is a lot less important.
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Liability_B
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 22, 2008, 21:41
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And I think your festival has great potential. There IS a heart there in the right place, and you've not donee badly at all.
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Fergal
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 22, 2008, 22:16
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Hi and thanks for my first ever festival. I really enjoyed the weekend and thought it was very well run. My only comment of a negative nature is regarding the Rumpus rooms location, too close to the cinema tent and the camp fire. If thats all a moaning old git like me can complain about then things must have been good :)
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dharmabum
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 23, 2008, 01:17
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Liability_B wrote: More walkabout and indoor spaces pleeeeease. If ther are spaces foor people to sit, even if huddled, (I again refer to the Small World Stage), undercover, they do not have to continually walk about listlessly to keep warm, chruning up the earth as they go. If there are talented brightly coloured people making people smile and think, the weather is a lot less important.
It's good to hear that you are reading these boards - you clearly put a huge amount of effort into curating this event...
...I couldn't figure out why you hadn't sorted some sort of 'gazebo' for the green man cafe area...what's missing is random undercover areas which aren't bars.
We were 2 adults with our 2 1/2 yr old son. We got about fine with our carrier. This may be good info for you - we took shelter in the film tent on the sunday mid-afternoon as it was the *only* space we could find. Having been to lots of other folky festivals - if yr under cover WHO CARES if the rain hits?
--- The main stage is a cool setting...and we enjoyed that in the rain, but I hope you can at least consider some dry havens for next time in the other places?
xx
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blod
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 23, 2008, 01:28
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Thank you for having us. Considering the conditions you did a bloody good job.
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Rogerio
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 23, 2008, 09:24
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Thanks very much for the message, Green Man.
Your festival is amazing. It was my second GM festival, and I intend to come back again and again, it's the UK's best festival. But I've made some criticisms about the location of the FD stage, and I hope you take them into account for next year.
I think the arrangement for 2007 was much better, because you could go from Main Stage to FD very quickly, it made the festival more intimate. But others pointed out that the mud was terrible last year and that there was some sound clashes... But I still think that the two stages close to each other give GM a unique, intimate feeling. Oh, and we need a bar next to FD stage, please...
Congratulations for the line up. Like last year, I got to know some bands I had never heard of and loved. The Owl Service and Wolf People were the highlights of the new stuff for me. As one of the main attractions, maybe next year we could have The Decemberists?
Thanks again for keeping GM alive and kicking.
Best!
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scotsbloke
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 23, 2008, 09:49
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brilliant festival in a stunning location...there was a bit of confusion as to where we could camp when we arrived on thursday,ie no signs for family camping etc and lots of tents were moved only for the spaces to be filled up again by non families....it didnt make any difference in the end as everyone was cool.
more random covered areas scattered about the site would be great to get some cover if it rains again as well.
but our group will be back again as the whole experience was fantastic.
thanks for a great festival and a big thanks to the glanusk groundsman who gave us a lift to the footy on sunday afternoon.
hello to mark from pasta stall and the evans brothers from manc.
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GreenMan
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Re: Green Man Festival Update - Thank You for Coming
Aug 23, 2008, 10:02
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[quote="Maybe an idea would be to get a focus group of attendees from this year to see what THEY feel could be areas that could be improved upon which you as organisers maybe don't see (wood for the trees sort of thing:-)[/quote]
We are looking to put a post festival questionnaire on the website soon which will give everyone an opportunity to put forward ideas for the 2009 festival. Lots of the posts have been really interesting and helpful. If the suggestions/ideas are appropriate and we can afford them, then we will try and bring them into the festival.
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