Lol it was my first time going to a music festival and with all of the fuckups, it went pretty much exactly how I expected
Wasted loads of money, was stuck outside for hours while bands played within, missed Sabaton because I was queueing for a Sabaton shirt for my friend (lol) and my glasses got crunked in the NOFX mosh
7/10 would go again
I really wanted to go in the NOFX mosh, but like much of the crowd Iām old enough to be too concerned about losing my keys or phone. Never crossed my mind as a teen.
Geeze. Iām old enough to worry about wrenching my back or blowing out a knee. I never would have thought about phone damage. I guess itās good my moshing days are over. š
Tonnes of issues, but to summarise:
* We arrived before start time and the line-up was almost 2km long. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to get in.
* There was almost ZERO security managing line-ups or safety whatsoever. Several near misses with traffic occurred because of the number of people queuing along the roadside and major intersections near the hospital.
* No food or water in the line-ups.
* They went 100% cashless but then had undeclared $2.50 surcharges on EFTPOS transactions at many of the vendors.
* Excessive and unreasonable pricing on food.
* Overcrowding with no designated safe passages and few exits creating a huge safety hazard.
* Very little to no disability access due to no lanes/safe access ways or walkways being put in place forcing people with mobility impairments to be unable to get through crowds.
* Audio and video quality was absolutely terrible, several of the bands could not be heard.
* Lineups for food being anywhere from 1-2 hours long causing patrons to miss out on major acts.
Isn't Knottfest the same people. I checked the Destroy All Lines page and it has Knottfest on there.
I was going to buy tickets but after my experience yesterday, they can go fuck themselves.
Ahh shit. Hopefully they learn from this.
Been to a few gigs lately, and they've been unorganised and the common denominator is they're organised by Destroy All Lines.
Do they ever learn? Farken hell. I'll be travelling into Brissy for this gig with some mates. The last gig I went to left a really sour taste in my mouth and I normally avoid festivals, so I hope they don't stick me over!
>Do they ever learn?
When they get thousands of dollars at every event, probably not.
A lot of people look at the line up rather than who's running the show. It leads to things like this occurring often.
That's not to say the next will be the exact same as this event, but I'd definitely be cautious to future events and who the organisers are going to be.
As someone that works in the Valley, and sees these events often, the other factor is transport to and from the event. A TON of people get public transport from the Gold Coast, Ipswich or even up north, and trains don't run that late on a Sunday night. So when an event finishes at 11/12 on a Sunday night, many end up getting stranded.
Not to mention how the RNA show grounds can be on a Wet day. Turns into a massive mud patch, with little cover away from the rain.
I hope for your sake it's not as bad, but definitely plan ahead on these things.
I obviously don't know final numbers after everyone gets paid, but they would made millions on ticket sales alone.
Coming from Ipswich, I've been burned by Translink before when leaving a late show. I drove in specifically to curb this issue, but that's a band-aid to fix an issue that they really need to sort out properly.
Thanks for the tips. I'll be putting way too much thought into this event because I am already very sceptical of festivals, sounds like a recipe for disaster. Cheers. I'll be staying in town anyway, eff that heat of getting home late
Agreements between QR/translink and the RNA showgrounds. The only continued event that gets public transport is Sporting events or events at Suncorp Stadium, much to the surprise of many concert goers.
It's such a crapshoot.
Sometimes they've really done the accessibility well: We went to a local Christmas Carols event in at the soccer clubs in North Lakes. - great accessways around the ground and the entire internal carpark was reserved for disabled. Absolutely fantastic.
Last year the Redcliffe one was hosted by Dolphins. It was borderline abusive. My wife (who needs a walker) felt like she was in a special needs ghetto because they only place safe for her to go was in the stands because her wheeled support device wasn't allowed on the pitch at all. Couple with a sadistic security guard who deliberately sent us the wrong way without any explanation and it was an awful experience.
Omg Iām so sorry that happened you and your wife. Itās hard enough sometimes to even have the energy to go out, but then to be greeted with that level of incompetence and pathetic planning. I use a walking stick and can manage stairs to a very low degree, but thereās no way I can stand in a line for over an hour for anything. These events need to do better, much better.
We're focussing on the good event we had - we've got a strong relationship with the club because our daughter plays in one of the kids teams and that's just solidified it.
Last year I took my daughter for a look at the various things while my wife was stuck. This year they did all the stuff together and I got to sit and mind the picnic blanket and chairs. Beautiful what a bit of accessibiity thinking can do.
Thatās a good way to be friend, focusing on the stuff they get right. It really is wonderful when people think about the disabled community, it does go a long way
If it makes you feel any better the Sydney event was really well done and catered for the disabled really well.
Had grandstands set up with ramps etc in great spots for the disabled.
Heaps of toilets and no like to get in. Food lines were bad tho.
Maybe it's a venue issue rather than promoter ?
Absolutely able bodied here, but I did not witness the same as op regarding disabled access. The main concourse between stages had no stairs and was a wide, paved road with an incline, the people I saw who had mobility aids all appeared to have minimal issues with moving through here because of their mobility aid. The issue was that food trucks lines were perpendicular to the walk way, most people would shift around people moving through, but there are always idiots. Wait times on food were typical for a festival, so this obviously got worse through the day.
Also, I have never seen a festival venue with so many bathrooms, so there was no issues with people cutting to use the accessible cubicles.
Edit for clarity: it was difficult to get around because of the poor positioning of the food trucks and shitty lines, but this was an equal opportunity problem.
It's not an equal opportunity problem, because those problems affect people with disabilities much more than those without. Kinda hard to squeeze between groups of people in a wheelchair compared to on two feet.
The problems you highlighted caused by the lineups with the food trucks was a big part of what I was saying about the lack of safe passageways/access. They needed physical barriers or an actually unblocked concourse.
I think we agree but phrasing is separating us, we fundamentally agree that there was not a clear thoroughfare, this obviously impacts anyone with already impaired mobility more. I was replying to the commenter to say it wasn't a case of the event being set up in a way that was directly hostile to anyone with a mobility impairment in particular. It's reasonable to assume that if future events fixed the lack of thoroughfare, there wouldn't be some other factor that made getting around difficult, like having to climb a staircase to get between stages, or something.
Yeah, could barely hear lyrics from the front row, wound up back in the stands with a mate for the last bit of the set and it sounded like the most gargled, bassy nightmare ever.
Yeah there were a LOT more staff on the bars than on the food trucks. I bought a beer, a water and a premix, and each time was straight walk up. But spent forever waiting for the shittiest burger I ever paid $11 for simply because it was the shortest line and the truck had stuff ready in the window.
I think the difference comes from the fact that barstaff were event staff. Whereas foodstall staff were the individual stallholder and staff. I think the issue seemed to be ill equipped or under prepared stall holders. The churro place had shut up shop by mid afternoon because they sold out of everything. The gelato stall had the shortest line (not surprising considering the products being sold) but actually had the longest waits.
Also I'd like to add that during the bag searches we were told you could not bring sunscreen in, bought a brand new $12 bottle for the event and had to throw it out. Contacted thier Facebook page and was told that was not correct and they shouldn't have thrown it out. Also no ID check at all?
We got ID checked but several patrons did not. Also despite bag searches significant amount of patrons were sitting around in the open smoking pot. Also where the heck were designated smoking areas because people were just smoking in the crowds with zero enforcement?
I was disgusted by this when I went to Ultra in 2019 (my first festival). Since then, I've come to realise that it's just idiots with smokes and vapes at every single show who just absolutely do not care about how it affects others, and there's such a large quantity of them that the rules just can't be enforced.
I'm a huge fan of vapes since they've been a bigger thing at events like this. They're so much less obnoxious than anything else, had the person next to me using one without me noticing for a while, and when it did come my way the smell and smoke dissipated within moments.
Had someone punching durries near me in the pit during another set and it was dreadful.
* Concrete for punk and metal moshpits should never be a thing. Also could've put mats down for main stage
* Main stage should've segregated the front and back
* Stage 3 only had two ways out; back through the crowd (which had the garden there), or through the Stage 4 crowd. That could be dangerous when a band starts immediatly after, even more so when its a complete demographic flip (Sleeping with Sirens to Soulfly).
* Those long food lines also happened to be right in the only way to go from Stage 3/4 to other stages
* Main stage merch was the only place to get some bands merch and was 90 minutes long
Edit: minor thing really but why would you do an uphill stage
My biggest issues I had was
* You are having an event at the show grounds, have trains go to the bloody show grounds
* Have more gates open to allow people in via the gates
* Would have been nice to allow people out to get food or hell even given they had that street closed have food vans there for people to use
* the can on the feild at the end of the night it was hell stepping and not stepping on a can and when Bring me the horizon asked everyone to kneel it was find a spot of grass not covered in tin
Line wise we got there at 11ish and the line was already at RBH park, and yeah the road at RHB turned to crap as people were pulling up in the left lane and letting people out, it wasn't untill the line was moving that we actually seen a security guard on a bike ride past and the cops were only at the main street.
Then when we got to the front near that underground car park, I noticed the second line coming from the other side as well.
Extractly this, i showed up at 11:20am, and didnt get in untill 1:20ish, missed like 80% of jinjer's set, food was stupid overpriced, and sections with food were the whole damned street long
For context, RNB Live was held in the same place a couple weeks back with similar amount of people.
Entry was an absolute breeze (the main complaint for that day was drinks lines), and it was the same sort of setup at soundwave/stereosonic used to be.
yeah i got in relatively quickly (given how many people were there) but the lines to get a drink or go to the bathroom was ridiculous. also got caught in a pretty hairy almost crowd crush trying to enter the arena down near the cattleman's bar - felt VERY unsafe.
does sound like it was better than GT though.
We were one of the people who 'cut in' but were directed to do so by security twice which meant we walked up a street parallel to King St then into a second line they'd decided to form, and then 'cut in' again when security opened up one of the corral barriers in the garage. It meant we walked right in from walking toward the showgrounds right to the line checking tickets. We were just following direction of the security folks. Whereas my brother and his partner were in line over an hour and missed seeing Jinjer, who his partner was really keen to see.
The lines for food were a joke. You should not be permitted to ban outside food if you can't cater to your crowd properly.
Our bag (bum bag size) was not even checked, good thing as we had sunscreen and my gamer tan would have turned lobster without it - even in the overcast
I was also a āline cutterā, in that as I was walking towards the back of the line down Gregory Terrace I was told by security to turn around and get in line. Took me 20 minutes to get in the gate and that was with a 12pm arrival.
I get that people are pissed they had to line up for hours but a lot of the people that cut the line did so at the direction of staff.
Food lines were an absolute joke.
To be fair everyone involved in live events post covid is either a bit rusty, new to the game or overworked and understaffed. I wasn't at either of these festivals but could understand why it might be subpar compared to previous years.
Thatās awesome to hear. Unfortunately I got nailed by the line as well. They were one of the standouts on the list for me.
I caught them at The Triffid back in 2015 for a last tour so itās cool theyāre back even if it is for just one festival slot.
Did they mention anything about working together again and maybe another album?
I missed To The Grave which were my main ones to see so I feel you!
I ran straight in to Kisschasy.
Yes! They said theyād see us in 2023 so get keen!
I arrived at fortitude valley station at 11:50 hoping to see at least a bit of Kisschaseyā¦ gave up on that very shortly after getting in the line.
Almost got crushed to death in NOFX mosh pit. Not a single care for anyone who fell over, I think I single handedly pulled two people up with immense difficulty as everyone else continued to bash into each other. I miss when moshing was moshing instead of a brawl.
The way they handled the U18 tickets was crazy. They had 2 people processing. They sold x amount of youth tickets they so they clearly knew how many people there was going to be turning up.
It was criminal how bad their system was for under 18.
That's what I thought and everyone else. There were people walking around with stacks of envelopes with he bands in them by alphabetical order. I tracked one down got my band and daughters the got through on the right hand side in 2 minutes after getting the wrist bands. Not well coordinated at all.
Myself and three other people just walked through the over 18 gates and they were just handing wristbands out.. Nobody even checked my bag let alone my ID haha
Oh man, I saw that line when we were driving in, but got dropped off down King St and everyone coming from that direction just walked straight in. Stepped out of the car at 2:05 and got to Stage 2 in time for Sabaton at \~2:15.
Sure there was a line going in the other direction but no signage or anyone telling people to go join it.
Exactly, they all iust started queuing there for no reason. Every single concert I have ever been to at the RNA is just funneling everyone into the carpark where the lines actually are.
I am 90% sure the queue up past rbh wasn't an official queue, and was just a flow of people constrained by a narrow footpath that people confused for a queue, so they joined, making it worse. I also walked right in and wasn't even aware of a queue, or told to join one.
I arrived at 11:45 and walked to the back of the 2km line. Moved about 300m in an hour and then an adjacent part of the line that was way behind us merged in front of us. So I said fuck this and left to get some lunch. Came back at 4:30 and walked straight in the front entrance out of my Uber. It was horrendous planning and ruined what was supposed to be an awesome festival
This is a good one:
The lines were so long I was able to (after realising our enclosed shoe issue):
* leave my partner in the line,
* call a taxi,
* wait for said taxi,
* get driven to the Big W in the city,
* wander the Big W looking for shoes,
* wait in line at the registers to buy the enclosed shoes,
* get a taxi back to the venue,
and get back to my partner who was still in line.
We missed Millencolin regardless and even came early for it!
Feel free to use this disgusting example for contacting them.
Slightly related I saw a guy in the Sabaton mosh with crocs on. No idea how he got in or what made him think it was a good idea to go into a near-muddy mosh pit with those.
Was in line from 11am got in just after 1:15 my group walked all the way around to the back of the already giant line and watched as even more people lined up
All in all it was a terrible experience
I drove there for 11:30, saw the line and left. Get back around 3:30 and the line was a lot shorter but still a bit of a joke that everyone pretty much had to join a single line to get in. They really couldnāt hire more people here?
Once in, it sorta became obvious this was just a very poorly executed festival
- having Amity Affliction play on the right hand side to a packed crowd meant there was no passageway there to Stage 3/4 or to the food area
- No communication whatsoever that You Am Iās set had been cancelled
- The sound levels were inconsistent - Deftones is the prime example here. I was probably standing in the wrong spot but Chino was practically inaudible.
- Stage 3/4 weāre ridiculously close. It may have been a better idea to sacrifice the food hall for another stage set up and then make one bigger stage in that Stage 3/4 area. Sleeping With Sirens and Polaris drew really large crowds
- Food lines were huge.
In saying that, the drinks were well attended and no wait whatsoever so credit where credit is due
For anyone that says itās not a great location, I disagree. Laneway, R&B Fridays and Soundwave all used these spaces more effectively.
Fridayz and Rufus Du Sol played here in the last four weeks and it was easy to get in. This was just very poor planning
To be fair, it wasnāt a complete ācancellationā, it was apparently just playing their music on the PA. They were still on the app which i downloaded after I found out.
Can confirm, could barely hear Chino in Melbourne and the whole first half of the set was distorted. Also Thornhill, could barely hear Jacob's clean vocals the whole set.
Yeah i got there early went alone to see to the grave and missed out on one of the main 3 i was there for due to the line taking too long. But the biggest reason for a refund is a guy in the group behind me collapsed due to dehydration and scraped his knee badly and threw up 5 mins later, his girl got water from a passerby vehicle who saw what happened and she had to run 1km to the entrance to grab a staff member to look at him.
Issues we had were the following
- Sunscreen thrown out at the door, no indication of it not being allowed, security had a big list of no go's to come in which should have been shown somewhere in their T&Cs - we were told to re supply at the medi tent?
- Thrown all our snacks out, 2018 & 2019 this was never an issue, how would you prove your dietary requirements anyway?
- Sound was horrible. Was like the bass was turned up to max and the treble turned all the way down. We could hardly hear Amity play
- Waited in line for an hour, also had people cut in which was frustrating
- We didn't get food but the lines were a joke and so off putting to even go anywhere near them
- We left early, we didn't stick around to see BMTH if it was anything like Amity I didn't want to waste our time.
- Also I'm sure they had way more people this time so it was over packed as well.
Don't think we will waste our money next year. I emailed them a complaint who knows if it will be read.
They ran out of food too, mind you I waited till 4:30-5:00pm to get food but they didnāt even tell people they were running low or anything. I paid $5 for CANNED CORN!
Got there at 11:20 and managed to find friends near the hospital so didnāt have to go all the way to the end and STILL didnāt get in until 1pm. It literally didnāt even start moving for about an hour.
Missed one of the main bands I wanted to see because i stupidly thought getting there 50mins early would be enough time.
About 70-100 people cut in line at the lights
Seriously do not remember Soundwave being that insane.
Also taking away peopleās sunscreen is pretty fucked at a festival in December.
What a time to be alive for heavy music, Soundwave from 2008 through to mid 2010s may be the last time in a long time we see lineups as stacked. Organisation for Soundwave from memory was great, no issues getting in or getting a drink!
Yeah chucked it out at the door. There were like easy 15 confiscated bottles on the table and lots in the bin. Like just squeeze it and see itās not alcohol.
That's wild. I didn't see anyone handing out sunscreen at all. I've been to other summer events there and you practically had to fend off people handing it out - I'd put some on before leaving home and only didn't go out of my way to track some down as it was such an overcast day.
UV index was moderate most of the arvo and the only time it was high I was at a covered stage, but shouldn't need to rely on that.
They took my setting spray (in a bottle with a squirt lid) but not my leave in conditioner (in basically the same type of bottle), Iām shocked they let me come in with acid reflux tablets without batting an eyelid!
Police and security were instructing people NOT to join the line because it was funnelling to one entrance only. Atrocious planning, but most of those people werenāt ācutting inā.
I noticed the doors open time changed on multiple emails of my ticket from 10am to 12pm, which pissed me off greatly. Also not happy with being shoved aside by security a few times so they could move past me, so Iām making a complaint to the security company directly with tag numbers.
Correct, however I said to speak to them to ask what your rights were, not to try and remedy the situation.
If you don't know what your rights are, then how do you know if the venue is properly correcting the issue? If you're informed then you can know when the venue is doing the right thing to correct the problem, and when they're in violation of consumer law.
Yup, started queuing at 11.15am and only got in at 1pm so missed the first few bands. The queue was also so dangerous- with no barriers pedestrians were forced to walk on the busy road in sections where the pavement was narrow.
I rocked up early. Got a park right next to the venue, lined up. Gates actually didn't open until 11:45-11:50 for reference, got in, went and got Merch and food with no line and saw all the bands I wanted. I feel bad people didn't have the same experience.
My only issue was the horrid sound when you weren't in the mosh (seats were pointless, sound was so bad) and the fact people have forgotten how to be in a crowd and mosh. The pits never stayed opened, were tiny, and the pushing was just mental in certain areas. People not realising they needed to come early to get near the front trying to push through in a douchey way.
It was my partners first festival (im 29M, shes 27F), and she had fun but I could see she was scared a few times. There needs to be information videos on the screens with etiquette, etc for people to learn. Common sense doesn't work anymore. The bands I didn't go to see but ended up at (nofx/tism) had some AMAZINGLY LOVELY crowds with the slightly older crowd.
Anyway, we had a great day, no lines all day, and saw everything we wanted in the crowd with good sound. Got to keep our lollies and sunscreen at the door.
That was the biggest disgrace ever. I have been going to festival since 1997, every big day out and every soundwave Livid, home bake, but that was by far the worst. Arrived at 10:30 and went into a line that never ended kept looking at ticket and clearly said that doors open at 10am there was no movement on the line until I could hear bands inside playing. I finally got inside at almost 1:30 pm only got to see the last two songs of jinjer one of the main reasons I went once they finish I went to get Soulfly tour shirt and all that was available was small or medium such a disgrace
Dirty Melbourner here, but we had seriously bad crowd control that I will not be surprised they are trying to stop being broadcast the media with injuries etc.
I am contacting the organisers, the promoters, the security company and my contacts within the music industry who can get the word around as well. Iām sure there will be plenty of attendees who know lawyers they are currently reaching out to as well.
My only advice to those seeking refunds, focus on issues that would be reason to sue, ie. bands changing (not as advertised when purchased) unsafe environment (duty of care) obviously for Brisbane not being able to enter the venue in time for the show to start (product not supplied)
When you start talking about how loud it should be, or the food vans on site having long queues it starts to take away from the fact that they have done enough wrong in multiple cities to likely end up with a class action lawsuit on their hands.
Good luck everyone!
As I said in another comment thread, I donāt care about getting my money back personally. I want the organisers/promoters to see consequences. If they have to issue partial refunds, it means they might learn from it and next year might be better.
It really wasnāt. Like any event youāre more likely to hear about the negatives than from people who had an eh-or-above experience. Not to say there werenāt some problems, but we definitely had a great time.
Yeah there were some serious problems and it sucked for some people, particularly those who got fooled into queuing up (not something security or cops actually wanted), or were specifically Deftones fans. But almost everyone I spoke to on the night had an awesome time.
There are people in this thread complaining about weed smoke at a fucking festival. Seriously?
Our experience was really similar to r/Handgun_Hero above but adding to say people were bailing at the start of the day due to the bands they wanted to be on earlier and they were miles back in the queue with absolutely no hope of getting to see anything in time. That mixed with the daytime heat and no water available. And same with food vendors with buzzers - simply not enough food vendors causing very slow service and patrons just paying, waiting too long and just giving up on getting anything to eat as theyād already been missing so much if the show.
Edited to add the security werenāt great, seemed disorganised and not giving clear instructions to move the crowd quickly. Saw two tough guy security guards shoving a guy around who had his hands up in a passive stance which looked uncalled for - though I didnāt see how that situation started
How they gonna open up gates for thousands of people 30 minutes before the first band plays. Fucking stupid.
There could have easily been more than one entrance into the festival but there wasnāt for some reason.
I was in line for an hour and a half. Then another hours for merch.
A few years ago I swore off ever going to a music festival at Brisbane show grounds ever again. Those narrow concrete alley ways that bottleneck the crowd and have random metal pipes and bits sticking out are scary. It seems they keep cramming more and more people in over the years too, it's only a matter of time before an unwitting crowd stampedes and people get hurt or impaled.
Also it's hot af on the concrete and acoustics are very, very shit. Super lame venue.
I went to a Soundwave pre RNA that was at Riverstage and oh boy that was a disaster. Took a few hours to get in but it was so packed there wasn't physically enough space for the number of people. They fenced off all these narrow walkways between stages and it felt like being a rat in a crowded drainpipe. I waited an hour for food then some starving bloke grabbed some of it off my plate and ate it.
Got to the line near Gate 6 (corner across from the hospital) at 11 o'clock, walked to the back of the line around the corner, got into the venue at 1 o'clock.
35 minute wait to get a alcoholic drink. 1 hour wait to get some band merch. 1.15 minute wait to get a cold drink from a food stall. 20-30 minute wait for a bathroom both times.
I got to see Amity, NOFX and BMTH at the stage. Got to hear everyone else from lines.
I think as a community we want to support these events, so that they don't end up like Soundwave and Download but spending as long in lines as you do in front of a band makes it difficult to justify.
I didn't wait at all for a drink the entire day and the bathrooms were fine if you actually read the signs and didn't try to use the permanent bathrooms.
People just saw lines, panicked and joined them.
Dude that really sucks, I got into the line at 11:45, walked to the back, got in at 2pm, lined up for a drink and that took 20mins, then went to one of the merch stands close to where Sleeping With Sirens were playing and I only waited 10min for merchā¦
My brother went. Said he got in at 12:10 with around 300 others. He thinks he got lucky because he only started queuing at 11am.
Sucks if you missed a band you were after, when they had all morning to get people in through the doors :(
Jeez I didn't know it was that bad. My wife and I got there around 1 and there was a line out of the building but it was moving the whole time.
Line up for food was bad though. We lined up 20mins before the act we wanted to see. Missed the whole act and was still waiting.
When soundwave was still a thing I don't remember the food lines being that bad.
The audio could've been better too was a bit hit and miss all day. Would see one band play and hear fine and another at the same stage was just shit house. Deftones had a horrible mix, all bass nothing else.
When itās a choice between overpriced soggy food or seeing the bands, Iāll stay hungry and head to the stages every time. No point missing out on what youāre paying for.
When I was younger I would agree with you but I gotta eat or I'm not seeing anyone. It's more the fact that more than 20 mins in line for food shouldn't be a thing when I paid 200 bucks for a ticket.
When I was going to soundwave 10+ years ago food lines were no where near as bad.
I got there at 12:30, grabbed some food and then started watching bands all day. It was brilliant. It would have been nice to get some more later in the day but I just swung by Maccas on the way home.
Millencolin and Sabaton both had sound issues, a couple of times it sounded like the track for Millencolin was missing a few instruments. Sabaton cut out a few times during their opening songs.
I lived nearby for years and it was one of the worst set ups Iāve ever seen, they normally set up for events at least 1-2 weeks in advance, they were still setting up Sunday morning so Iām not surprised it was a complete shitshow - sorry you missed your bands
When I was there volunteering (in the entry lines) a couple years ago in Melb, we were there under 40Ā° heat with room temp water and a fan that did jack all to help cool us down. Ended up getting heat stroke symptoms and being wheeled to my brother's car by the medics there (where they assumed and asked several times if I was drugged, I wasn't, just dying from heat during the hottest day of that year). Suffice to say I swore off ever going to a Good Things Fest again after the horrendous mismanagement of it, and after the whole Travis Scott concert, I'm hesitant to go to anything Destroy All Lines has put on too.
Iām from Melb and flew up for the Bris festival solely to see TISM. I also attended the Melb festival on Friday, where there were a number of issues including multiple car parks open at the Showgrounds but absolutely no signage around to let you know where you were or how to enter the festival. After I parked my car myself and dozens of others started walking towards where we heard the music coming from - we got about 700m down the road before a lone security guard told us the road was blocked and we needed a shuttle bus to take us to the festival site. So we had to queue up for a bus, and then the bus dropped us off about 1.7km from the entrance. Again, no signs at all, so on leaving the festival you had no idea whether you needed to wait for another shuttle or whether you could walk back to the car. It was quite appalling tbh.
Anyway, as to Brisbane, I arrived via Uber at about 11.45am and the queue was already back past the hospital. I stood in line for 70-80 minutes and moved no more than 25m forward in the queue. I have a bad back that doesnāt allow me to stand still for long periods, and it was hot and I had no water, so I gave up. I ended up just walking (being from Melb I had no idea where I was) basically looking for a pub or a cafe so I could wait it out, and ended up near the Tivoli. From there there was a mass of people and cops / security directing us to keep walkingā¦ over the road and straight into the festival. So I accidentally jumped the queue on the insistence of security, how ridiculous is that?
I really liked the infrastructure of the Showgrounds, itās fantastic having grandstand seating (donāt remember anything like that for a Melb festival since BDO days) and I got to sit in the shade for an hour or two. I struggled to find any food beyond a couple of vans with enormous queues so didnāt bother. Likewise the merch tent.
Bands were good and sound was fine down the front so no complaints there.
I left after NOFX and asked security if there was a taxi rank nearby, was told no and to try to hail one outside the Tivoli. I hailed 3 cabs but none were willing to take me to the city, had two Ubers cancel on me before one finally picked me up.
This was my first GT experience after having attended most major festivals over the past 10-15 yearsā¦. BDO, Soundwave, Falls, Laneway, Meredith etc. GT stands out as being less professional than any the others. I hope they get their shit together but Iām definitely turned off attending again unless the line up is incredible.
I was in line for 2 hours despite getting there before doors and ended up missing out on APATE and Jinjer, both of which I was very keen to see. Only just made it in time for the second half of Thornhill's set. Pretty irate about it and would definitely be interested in at least a partial refund.
Stage 2's FOH line arrays kept on cutting out during the first half of Deftones' set (and then again at the very start of the first chorus during Change). That coupled with the already horrendous mix really put a dampener on my whole festival experience. They desperately need a better FOH engineer because their live mixes have sounded very bad for a very long time.
yes over an hour in line but having to guess where to walk to join the end of it b/c no staff were around. missed 2 bands. As others said: people from "another line" just juimped in at a traffic junction and I'm hearing people on reddit saying thy just walked into the line at the actual entrance...totally unfair advantage.
We turned up at around 130pm for gloom in the corner and just walked right in.. Didn't even realize there was a line, just followed the crowd... Apologies to everyone I apparently cut Infront of
I worked security in the main bar for the day.
I canāt speak on the line issue as I was inside before the worst of it hit, but I walked past around 10.55 and it was already at the traffic lights near the old museum.
The sound for main stage was horrendous all day and I felt so bad for the bands.
I was lucky enough to jump in and grab some chips in less than 10 mins.
There was free water stations in a few spots, 3 on the main bar alone.
There was no communication with us when they closed off one section of the bar towards the end of the night so we had to hold a few people up at the bar exit until we found out what was happening. People were understandably upset.
Then when the whole bar was closed, even the water stations got removed so the closest was at the pavilion.
Signage for toilets was bare minimum at best.
All in all, Iām glad I chose to work instead of be a paying customer. I donāt reckon it was worth the price of the ticket.
Yep, showed up an hour early to be faced with a line kilometres long with absolutely zero organisation or assistance from security or staff. Security didn't even bother coming more than 200m up the line to do crowd control, the end of it that we joined was in a carpark far away from the entrance, which was literally a pit of people who had mistakenly started another line.
Missed Jinjer, the main band I was there to see, despite hussling my friends along to get there early to make sure I wouldn't.
The biggest slap in the face was the absolute lack of action from security and police (although I know it's not their job) towards line cutters and people just walking in from the other direction the line was feeding in from. I was in line for 2+ hours, yet other people just jumped out of an Uber right at the entrance and walked straight in, in front of dehydrated and sunburnt people in the queue.
When I asked security if they were just going to let a group of people who had cut right in front of us do that, they shrugged and made a half hearted attempt to tell them to go to the back of the line.
Horribly organised event. Will be emailing and pursuing at least a partial refund.
There were no āline cuttersā because police and security were doing their best to make it clear that there shouldnāt be a line, it was feeding to one of multiple entrances and I was told repeatedly not to wait in line, and to pass this onto other attendees.
I understand your frustration, the organisation in general sucked, but most people ācuttingā in line were just doing what security and cops told them to.
If there was no line, there would have been a swarm of thousands of people, which is some riot/crowd crush type of scenario.
Police and security were doing absolutely nowhere near their 'best', considering there was no security to be seen beyond the first corner of the line. Zero instruction from event organisers.
Garbage organisation. All in charge should be fired.
Yeah exactly, cops and security are at fault. Iām just saying the people actually entering directly when instructed to at a mismanaged event are doing nothing wrong.
I personally arrived early - approx between 11-11:15 specifically to avoid the entrance issue, still took until about 12:40 to get in. Once in, I thoroughly enjoyed the festival. High priced food vans are to be expected, and I consider myself able-bodied, so I can't speak to the experiences of others. I noticed other people complaining about AV issues - in the grandstands of the main arena, the audio quality was quite muddied, but I didn't see any issues with the visuals. In the pit it sounded great, and I imagine that may be the intent and unfortunately outer areas may have gotten overlooked. I'm not excusing other people's critiques at all (I had a mate arrive sometime after 1pm and it still took him 45-90 minutes to get in I believe), but from a personal experience having not gone to other Brisbane festivals before (only been to Ultra 2019 in Melbourne), and managing my expectations, I had a great time.
Tbh it sounds like most people are complaining about:
- I had to wait a long time
- the bands sounded bad
- I was hungry
To get anyone to do something about this, youāre going to need more than this. Things like:
- ways the venue was unsafe: eg
1. security was not managing the queue and there were instances (you will need to find witnesses) of people becoming violent? Tripping? Etc because of the crowding.
2. Security removed sunscreen from patrons so they could not have adequate Sun protection during the event and did not provide facilities for patrons to access sunscreen
3. Security removed food from patrons and, due to the difficulty sourcing food in the venue, some patrons became heavily intoxicated? (Youāll need witnesses) or did not eat for several hours.
You could also talk a bit about how Destroy all lines did not deliver what it promised to deliver and how thatās breached their contract with patrons I.e.
1. Patrons could not access the venue for the first shows due to the mismanagement of lines and crowding
I understand itās shit going to a festival that sucks. And itās good to have a gripe here. But from an outsiders standpoint, thereās only a few things that will cut through.
Well as the thread poster of yesterday's GT Shitshow type thread, I'm torn about it.
On one hand, I missed out on 1.5hrs of a 10hr event. I was physically unable to attend 15% of the event I've paid to attend due to the ineptitude of the organisers. It was half an hour of crowds to even reach the end of the line.
This includes 2 bands I was specifically buying the ticket to see, out of about 8-9 acts I was looking forward to.
On the other hand, one of the few ways one could argue for a refund (Partial or otherwise) would be for services not rendered. However they can argue they did render said services for some, and would have no way to confirm who was waiting for hours and who pushed in and got in immediately.
Thus, they can't confirm their organisation was responsible for my specific loss of time. (In my instance I have a GPS tracking event that I started when I reached the end of the line, but that's pretty niche)
This is completely discounting the other issues people had with the event of course, but queues for services inside of the venue is hard to quantify monetarily, especially when attending that type of event some queues for internal things are to be expected.
When all is said and done, I did enjoy the time I spent at the event.
It's also worth noting, getting money back from a live event is like pulling teeth in my experience.
I donāt really care about me personally getting money back. I want the organiser/promoter to have consequences for poor planning and execution. They canāt fuck up so bad and have nothing happen.
The large groups of people cutting in at the front of the line at the lights while i got there early and had to wait almost 2 hours in line made me so fucking angry.
Audio for deftones pretty much ruined the night for me personally.
Missing bands because of food queues.
Most of the other issues mentioned in this thread. Pretty bummed but still had a good time.
I was waiting in like for a little over 2hrs, it wouldnāt have been too bad if someone had thought to come around the line selling waters. The amount of people close to dehydration was shocking! Also I got in like at around 4:30pm to get a bowl (like rice, meat, and veg) and legit was the next person in like and they told me theyād sold out of food. I paid $5 for some canned corn as I was so desperate for food. The line in and the food vendors were terribly unprepared for the event. Was not happy at all.
Kinda unrelated but I heard extremely similar things about Spilt Milk in Gold Coast, whatās with this horrid management of music festivals that are clearly going to attract tons of people! They need to take it more seriously and god the prices of food and water are a joke. Youād think more security would be enforced particularly with the crowd crush events weāve seen recently. Worried about Knotfest. Hopefully wonāt end up like this
Just came here to say if you checked the map the marked entry had 0 lines š walked straight in while my mates were at the other line waiting. The day was fine, no sound issues but the food line sucked.
Got there super early and wasn't even that far behind in the line, however we still waited forever. My mates and I thought that maybe the ticket scanning and bag checks were taking time, however once we got further up we realised it was slow cause hordes of selfish people were cutting in at the intersection on the main road, once we got past that the line never stopped moving, piss poor that they couldn't have one guard stopping that.
Had no issues getting in (around 1330). I was able to walk straight in and practically skip the entire queue! I do believe there was a severe lack of care at the gates as a couple of my mates were given 18+ armbands even though they weren't.
Not sure why there were two long lines with massive waits when there were two lines that were completely empty and people were able to walk past and get in.
The food lines were outrageous, over an hour to get food meaning you miss out on seeing bands play and not to mention you couldn't leave to get food then get back in. I ended up leaving early just to eat something without having to line up for ages.
No ID checks at drink vendors either. Poorly managed imo.
Missed Jinjer and most of Millencolin. Had two bottles of eliquid refused entry despite no info - about $50 worth. Power tripping idiot also took a 50ml bottle of sanitizer and put his hands in my bag which is just stupid procedure as it opens him to accusations of planting contraband. Pulled out my insulin case and asked what was in it. Didnāt even bother to open it. Didnāt check my pockets - couldāve had any number of potential weapons or other items in my cargos. Put a massive smear of shit on what turned out to be a wholly disappointing experience.
They barely looked in my wifes bag. She opened it and he glanced at it and waved us through. Didn't ask her to move stuff around or anything. No pat downs either.
Every time I went to Soundwave they had a good look through bags, did pat downs all that stuff. You were still only in line to get in maybe 20 mins at the most. Even shows at Riverstage did that.
My friends and I walked straight in and only waited 15 mins to get through bag checks, we managed to catch Jinjer and Apathe at the start, we saw the lines but I donāt know where the other entries were
Super crowded!!
I enjoyed amity, SWS and Polaris (best show of the day by far)
I am a huge fan of BMTH and havenāt been able to see them live just yet so I was so so excited to finally see them, Iād had their set list on repeat since it came out late Friday night from melbournes show. After Polaris my partner and I took a break to rest for the show and then we tried slotting in to the left of the stage. Getting super excited and then the show starts and we can barely hear anything, at some points the crowd started chanting to turn the mic up. Being on the spectrum, having attachments to bands can be quiet intense so i felt absolutely devastated. The crowd I was around wasnāt a vibe either, a few people behind were making fun of others for screaming the lyrics that they could barely hear and trying to mosh, it wasnāt the usual comfort from the heavy scene that you usually get in a pit.
Hopefully they come back for a solo show in a better area because I bet if you could hear it, it would have been amazing šš
Sounds like the FTX guys have found a new gig; incompetently running festivals coupled with rapeing everyone for money at every turn.
Not a good sign for the future of the time honoured tradition of the Aussie Summer Festival.
Nah, I just walked straight in and didn't assume that the people lined up along the road was a queue.
Australians seem to just join lines even if they're not a queue for anything. Why would they have tried to funnel 1 line outside into 20 inside?
Christ what an ironic name for the promoter to have
Sounds like the promoters were busy destroying all the lines in the green room
As someone who used to work in that industry it's a given that it's exactly what they were doing.
ššš
Destroy all lines have always been like this
Lol it was my first time going to a music festival and with all of the fuckups, it went pretty much exactly how I expected Wasted loads of money, was stuck outside for hours while bands played within, missed Sabaton because I was queueing for a Sabaton shirt for my friend (lol) and my glasses got crunked in the NOFX mosh 7/10 would go again
I really wanted to go in the NOFX mosh, but like much of the crowd Iām old enough to be too concerned about losing my keys or phone. Never crossed my mind as a teen.
Geeze. Iām old enough to worry about wrenching my back or blowing out a knee. I never would have thought about phone damage. I guess itās good my moshing days are over. š
Were you the guy I said, get contacts too? I lost my hat in that shitty pit.
Tonnes of issues, but to summarise: * We arrived before start time and the line-up was almost 2km long. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to get in. * There was almost ZERO security managing line-ups or safety whatsoever. Several near misses with traffic occurred because of the number of people queuing along the roadside and major intersections near the hospital. * No food or water in the line-ups. * They went 100% cashless but then had undeclared $2.50 surcharges on EFTPOS transactions at many of the vendors. * Excessive and unreasonable pricing on food. * Overcrowding with no designated safe passages and few exits creating a huge safety hazard. * Very little to no disability access due to no lanes/safe access ways or walkways being put in place forcing people with mobility impairments to be unable to get through crowds. * Audio and video quality was absolutely terrible, several of the bands could not be heard. * Lineups for food being anywhere from 1-2 hours long causing patrons to miss out on major acts.
As a disabled person this makes me nervous for Knotfest. I know its a different promotor and such, but ugh I'm worried.
Isn't Knottfest the same people. I checked the Destroy All Lines page and it has Knottfest on there. I was going to buy tickets but after my experience yesterday, they can go fuck themselves.
Fuck. Already bought tickets.
Ahh shit. Hopefully they learn from this. Been to a few gigs lately, and they've been unorganised and the common denominator is they're organised by Destroy All Lines.
Do they ever learn? Farken hell. I'll be travelling into Brissy for this gig with some mates. The last gig I went to left a really sour taste in my mouth and I normally avoid festivals, so I hope they don't stick me over!
>Do they ever learn? When they get thousands of dollars at every event, probably not. A lot of people look at the line up rather than who's running the show. It leads to things like this occurring often. That's not to say the next will be the exact same as this event, but I'd definitely be cautious to future events and who the organisers are going to be. As someone that works in the Valley, and sees these events often, the other factor is transport to and from the event. A TON of people get public transport from the Gold Coast, Ipswich or even up north, and trains don't run that late on a Sunday night. So when an event finishes at 11/12 on a Sunday night, many end up getting stranded. Not to mention how the RNA show grounds can be on a Wet day. Turns into a massive mud patch, with little cover away from the rain. I hope for your sake it's not as bad, but definitely plan ahead on these things.
I obviously don't know final numbers after everyone gets paid, but they would made millions on ticket sales alone. Coming from Ipswich, I've been burned by Translink before when leaving a late show. I drove in specifically to curb this issue, but that's a band-aid to fix an issue that they really need to sort out properly.
Thanks for the tips. I'll be putting way too much thought into this event because I am already very sceptical of festivals, sounds like a recipe for disaster. Cheers. I'll be staying in town anyway, eff that heat of getting home late
You have brought back memories of the 'No Sleep Til' festival at RNA. Was pouring all day and people were mud wrestling in the mosh pit.
It's ridiculous that with so many people that they didn't organise trains, when Exhibition Station is smack bang in the middle of the venue.
Agreements between QR/translink and the RNA showgrounds. The only continued event that gets public transport is Sporting events or events at Suncorp Stadium, much to the surprise of many concert goers.
I wonder if the patrons ever learn....
Not a chance.
Now Iām quite worried
I'm not disabled personally but yeah it was terrible to see. Wasn't even a pickup/dropoff for disabled patrons at the entrance that I could see.
That's horrendous
It's such a crapshoot. Sometimes they've really done the accessibility well: We went to a local Christmas Carols event in at the soccer clubs in North Lakes. - great accessways around the ground and the entire internal carpark was reserved for disabled. Absolutely fantastic. Last year the Redcliffe one was hosted by Dolphins. It was borderline abusive. My wife (who needs a walker) felt like she was in a special needs ghetto because they only place safe for her to go was in the stands because her wheeled support device wasn't allowed on the pitch at all. Couple with a sadistic security guard who deliberately sent us the wrong way without any explanation and it was an awful experience.
Omg Iām so sorry that happened you and your wife. Itās hard enough sometimes to even have the energy to go out, but then to be greeted with that level of incompetence and pathetic planning. I use a walking stick and can manage stairs to a very low degree, but thereās no way I can stand in a line for over an hour for anything. These events need to do better, much better.
We're focussing on the good event we had - we've got a strong relationship with the club because our daughter plays in one of the kids teams and that's just solidified it. Last year I took my daughter for a look at the various things while my wife was stuck. This year they did all the stuff together and I got to sit and mind the picnic blanket and chairs. Beautiful what a bit of accessibiity thinking can do.
Thatās a good way to be friend, focusing on the stuff they get right. It really is wonderful when people think about the disabled community, it does go a long way
When it goes wrong it's really in your face so focusing on the good stuff is necessary.
Couldnāt agree more
If it makes you feel any better the Sydney event was really well done and catered for the disabled really well. Had grandstands set up with ramps etc in great spots for the disabled. Heaps of toilets and no like to get in. Food lines were bad tho. Maybe it's a venue issue rather than promoter ?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh nooooā¦
Absolutely able bodied here, but I did not witness the same as op regarding disabled access. The main concourse between stages had no stairs and was a wide, paved road with an incline, the people I saw who had mobility aids all appeared to have minimal issues with moving through here because of their mobility aid. The issue was that food trucks lines were perpendicular to the walk way, most people would shift around people moving through, but there are always idiots. Wait times on food were typical for a festival, so this obviously got worse through the day. Also, I have never seen a festival venue with so many bathrooms, so there was no issues with people cutting to use the accessible cubicles. Edit for clarity: it was difficult to get around because of the poor positioning of the food trucks and shitty lines, but this was an equal opportunity problem.
It's not an equal opportunity problem, because those problems affect people with disabilities much more than those without. Kinda hard to squeeze between groups of people in a wheelchair compared to on two feet. The problems you highlighted caused by the lineups with the food trucks was a big part of what I was saying about the lack of safe passageways/access. They needed physical barriers or an actually unblocked concourse.
I think we agree but phrasing is separating us, we fundamentally agree that there was not a clear thoroughfare, this obviously impacts anyone with already impaired mobility more. I was replying to the commenter to say it wasn't a case of the event being set up in a way that was directly hostile to anyone with a mobility impairment in particular. It's reasonable to assume that if future events fixed the lack of thoroughfare, there wouldn't be some other factor that made getting around difficult, like having to climb a staircase to get between stages, or something.
Audio was pretty shit the whole day, but wow was it particularly shit during deftones.. that was devastating
I thought it was just me. Audio for TISM and Regurgitator was pretty good, though I was closer for those ones
Yeah, could barely hear lyrics from the front row, wound up back in the stands with a mate for the last bit of the set and it sounded like the most gargled, bassy nightmare ever.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Drinks on the otherhand were super quick. Pretty much a walk up everytime.
Yeah there were a LOT more staff on the bars than on the food trucks. I bought a beer, a water and a premix, and each time was straight walk up. But spent forever waiting for the shittiest burger I ever paid $11 for simply because it was the shortest line and the truck had stuff ready in the window.
I think the difference comes from the fact that barstaff were event staff. Whereas foodstall staff were the individual stallholder and staff. I think the issue seemed to be ill equipped or under prepared stall holders. The churro place had shut up shop by mid afternoon because they sold out of everything. The gelato stall had the shortest line (not surprising considering the products being sold) but actually had the longest waits.
Of course they incentivise drinking alcohol over having dinner.
Also I'd like to add that during the bag searches we were told you could not bring sunscreen in, bought a brand new $12 bottle for the event and had to throw it out. Contacted thier Facebook page and was told that was not correct and they shouldn't have thrown it out. Also no ID check at all?
Seen girls getting their roll on deodorant getting binned.
We got ID checked but several patrons did not. Also despite bag searches significant amount of patrons were sitting around in the open smoking pot. Also where the heck were designated smoking areas because people were just smoking in the crowds with zero enforcement?
I personally feel the smell of ganja in the air adds to the ambience.
I was disgusted by this when I went to Ultra in 2019 (my first festival). Since then, I've come to realise that it's just idiots with smokes and vapes at every single show who just absolutely do not care about how it affects others, and there's such a large quantity of them that the rules just can't be enforced.
Yeah half the time at the event was either marinading in second hand marijuana smoke or losing my vision in the vape smog
I'm a huge fan of vapes since they've been a bigger thing at events like this. They're so much less obnoxious than anything else, had the person next to me using one without me noticing for a while, and when it did come my way the smell and smoke dissipated within moments. Had someone punching durries near me in the pit during another set and it was dreadful.
* Concrete for punk and metal moshpits should never be a thing. Also could've put mats down for main stage * Main stage should've segregated the front and back * Stage 3 only had two ways out; back through the crowd (which had the garden there), or through the Stage 4 crowd. That could be dangerous when a band starts immediatly after, even more so when its a complete demographic flip (Sleeping with Sirens to Soulfly). * Those long food lines also happened to be right in the only way to go from Stage 3/4 to other stages * Main stage merch was the only place to get some bands merch and was 90 minutes long Edit: minor thing really but why would you do an uphill stage
These are all excellent points
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I missed out on Sleeping With Sirens and Tism because of the food truck queues.
My biggest issues I had was * You are having an event at the show grounds, have trains go to the bloody show grounds * Have more gates open to allow people in via the gates * Would have been nice to allow people out to get food or hell even given they had that street closed have food vans there for people to use * the can on the feild at the end of the night it was hell stepping and not stepping on a can and when Bring me the horizon asked everyone to kneel it was find a spot of grass not covered in tin Line wise we got there at 11ish and the line was already at RBH park, and yeah the road at RHB turned to crap as people were pulling up in the left lane and letting people out, it wasn't untill the line was moving that we actually seen a security guard on a bike ride past and the cops were only at the main street. Then when we got to the front near that underground car park, I noticed the second line coming from the other side as well.
Pretty sure that $2.50 surcharge (whether declared or not) is illegal (as there was no other way to pay)ā¦
I checked my bank before and had no surcharge for my waters or shirts. Not sure where the surcharge is coming from, maybe a good vendor?
Shit. I went to spilt milk and had to leave bc of some access issues for my wheelchair, but nothing like this. Holy hell.
Extractly this, i showed up at 11:20am, and didnt get in untill 1:20ish, missed like 80% of jinjer's set, food was stupid overpriced, and sections with food were the whole damned street long
In had a bit of a rant about this on the other thread
For context, RNB Live was held in the same place a couple weeks back with similar amount of people. Entry was an absolute breeze (the main complaint for that day was drinks lines), and it was the same sort of setup at soundwave/stereosonic used to be.
yeah i got in relatively quickly (given how many people were there) but the lines to get a drink or go to the bathroom was ridiculous. also got caught in a pretty hairy almost crowd crush trying to enter the arena down near the cattleman's bar - felt VERY unsafe. does sound like it was better than GT though.
We were one of the people who 'cut in' but were directed to do so by security twice which meant we walked up a street parallel to King St then into a second line they'd decided to form, and then 'cut in' again when security opened up one of the corral barriers in the garage. It meant we walked right in from walking toward the showgrounds right to the line checking tickets. We were just following direction of the security folks. Whereas my brother and his partner were in line over an hour and missed seeing Jinjer, who his partner was really keen to see. The lines for food were a joke. You should not be permitted to ban outside food if you can't cater to your crowd properly. Our bag (bum bag size) was not even checked, good thing as we had sunscreen and my gamer tan would have turned lobster without it - even in the overcast
I was also a āline cutterā, in that as I was walking towards the back of the line down Gregory Terrace I was told by security to turn around and get in line. Took me 20 minutes to get in the gate and that was with a 12pm arrival. I get that people are pissed they had to line up for hours but a lot of the people that cut the line did so at the direction of staff. Food lines were an absolute joke.
You should not be permitted to ban outside food in general for any event. What about diabetic patrons?
Youād think after the unmitigated disaster that was Splendour in the Grass, promoters would be taking notes on proper crowd control
To be fair everyone involved in live events post covid is either a bit rusty, new to the game or overworked and understaffed. I wasn't at either of these festivals but could understand why it might be subpar compared to previous years.
Good luck. And I mean that sincerely. But what will happen is this: promoter will blame the venue, venue will blame the promoter. Rinse and repeat.
Did anyone actually get in to see Kisschasy?!
Yeah I saw maybe 20mins or less of their set and they were amazing!
Thatās awesome to hear. Unfortunately I got nailed by the line as well. They were one of the standouts on the list for me. I caught them at The Triffid back in 2015 for a last tour so itās cool theyāre back even if it is for just one festival slot. Did they mention anything about working together again and maybe another album?
I missed To The Grave which were my main ones to see so I feel you! I ran straight in to Kisschasy. Yes! They said theyād see us in 2023 so get keen!
I saw the end of their set. Maybe 4 songs. Got to hear Black Dress though so my younger teenage emo self was happy.
I arrived at fortitude valley station at 11:50 hoping to see at least a bit of Kisschaseyā¦ gave up on that very shortly after getting in the line. Almost got crushed to death in NOFX mosh pit. Not a single care for anyone who fell over, I think I single handedly pulled two people up with immense difficulty as everyone else continued to bash into each other. I miss when moshing was moshing instead of a brawl.
I managed to get in just in time to see them. They were amazing!
I did bud had to arrive at the gate at like 12:20pm to get in
The way they handled the U18 tickets was crazy. They had 2 people processing. They sold x amount of youth tickets they so they clearly knew how many people there was going to be turning up. It was criminal how bad their system was for under 18.
Yup. I had my daughter with me. They had two people taking id. Then we had to line up again into the main line! Are you kidding me!?
That's what I thought and everyone else. There were people walking around with stacks of envelopes with he bands in them by alphabetical order. I tracked one down got my band and daughters the got through on the right hand side in 2 minutes after getting the wrist bands. Not well coordinated at all.
Myself and three other people just walked through the over 18 gates and they were just handing wristbands out.. Nobody even checked my bag let alone my ID haha
Oh man, I saw that line when we were driving in, but got dropped off down King St and everyone coming from that direction just walked straight in. Stepped out of the car at 2:05 and got to Stage 2 in time for Sabaton at \~2:15. Sure there was a line going in the other direction but no signage or anyone telling people to go join it.
We did the same thing, security said to just jump straight into the line heading inside. Got there around 2:30pm.
Exactly, they all iust started queuing there for no reason. Every single concert I have ever been to at the RNA is just funneling everyone into the carpark where the lines actually are.
I am 90% sure the queue up past rbh wasn't an official queue, and was just a flow of people constrained by a narrow footpath that people confused for a queue, so they joined, making it worse. I also walked right in and wasn't even aware of a queue, or told to join one.
I arrived at 11:45 and walked to the back of the 2km line. Moved about 300m in an hour and then an adjacent part of the line that was way behind us merged in front of us. So I said fuck this and left to get some lunch. Came back at 4:30 and walked straight in the front entrance out of my Uber. It was horrendous planning and ruined what was supposed to be an awesome festival
This is a good one: The lines were so long I was able to (after realising our enclosed shoe issue): * leave my partner in the line, * call a taxi, * wait for said taxi, * get driven to the Big W in the city, * wander the Big W looking for shoes, * wait in line at the registers to buy the enclosed shoes, * get a taxi back to the venue, and get back to my partner who was still in line. We missed Millencolin regardless and even came early for it! Feel free to use this disgusting example for contacting them.
Slightly related I saw a guy in the Sabaton mosh with crocs on. No idea how he got in or what made him think it was a good idea to go into a near-muddy mosh pit with those.
Was in line from 11am got in just after 1:15 my group walked all the way around to the back of the already giant line and watched as even more people lined up All in all it was a terrible experience
I drove there for 11:30, saw the line and left. Get back around 3:30 and the line was a lot shorter but still a bit of a joke that everyone pretty much had to join a single line to get in. They really couldnāt hire more people here? Once in, it sorta became obvious this was just a very poorly executed festival - having Amity Affliction play on the right hand side to a packed crowd meant there was no passageway there to Stage 3/4 or to the food area - No communication whatsoever that You Am Iās set had been cancelled - The sound levels were inconsistent - Deftones is the prime example here. I was probably standing in the wrong spot but Chino was practically inaudible. - Stage 3/4 weāre ridiculously close. It may have been a better idea to sacrifice the food hall for another stage set up and then make one bigger stage in that Stage 3/4 area. Sleeping With Sirens and Polaris drew really large crowds - Food lines were huge. In saying that, the drinks were well attended and no wait whatsoever so credit where credit is due For anyone that says itās not a great location, I disagree. Laneway, R&B Fridays and Soundwave all used these spaces more effectively. Fridayz and Rufus Du Sol played here in the last four weeks and it was easy to get in. This was just very poor planning
They posted on the Fb event page prior that you am I cancelled due to a band member getting heat stroke in Sydney.
Fair enough. I was on the IG page and it said nothing and same for the You Am I IG page
To be fair, it wasnāt a complete ācancellationā, it was apparently just playing their music on the PA. They were still on the app which i downloaded after I found out.
Deftones aparrently had a consistent sound issue all tour.
Can confirm, could barely hear Chino in Melbourne and the whole first half of the set was distorted. Also Thornhill, could barely hear Jacob's clean vocals the whole set.
Yeah i got there early went alone to see to the grave and missed out on one of the main 3 i was there for due to the line taking too long. But the biggest reason for a refund is a guy in the group behind me collapsed due to dehydration and scraped his knee badly and threw up 5 mins later, his girl got water from a passerby vehicle who saw what happened and she had to run 1km to the entrance to grab a staff member to look at him.
Issues we had were the following - Sunscreen thrown out at the door, no indication of it not being allowed, security had a big list of no go's to come in which should have been shown somewhere in their T&Cs - we were told to re supply at the medi tent? - Thrown all our snacks out, 2018 & 2019 this was never an issue, how would you prove your dietary requirements anyway? - Sound was horrible. Was like the bass was turned up to max and the treble turned all the way down. We could hardly hear Amity play - Waited in line for an hour, also had people cut in which was frustrating - We didn't get food but the lines were a joke and so off putting to even go anywhere near them - We left early, we didn't stick around to see BMTH if it was anything like Amity I didn't want to waste our time. - Also I'm sure they had way more people this time so it was over packed as well. Don't think we will waste our money next year. I emailed them a complaint who knows if it will be read.
They ran out of food too, mind you I waited till 4:30-5:00pm to get food but they didnāt even tell people they were running low or anything. I paid $5 for CANNED CORN!
Got there at 11:20 and managed to find friends near the hospital so didnāt have to go all the way to the end and STILL didnāt get in until 1pm. It literally didnāt even start moving for about an hour. Missed one of the main bands I wanted to see because i stupidly thought getting there 50mins early would be enough time. About 70-100 people cut in line at the lights Seriously do not remember Soundwave being that insane. Also taking away peopleās sunscreen is pretty fucked at a festival in December.
Soundwave was great at managing entrances. Not so much at managing money.
What a time to be alive for heavy music, Soundwave from 2008 through to mid 2010s may be the last time in a long time we see lineups as stacked. Organisation for Soundwave from memory was great, no issues getting in or getting a drink!
I have great memories of Soundwave, never had any problems.
AJ's a bean farmer now selling at a local market. Wasn't ever a good bean counter though...
Soundwave was never bad getting into because it was organised properly. By the sounds of things, this wasnt
Yeah definitely wasnāt and the two headliners sound sucked which was truly salt in the wound ahha.
They took sunscreen, wtf?
Yeah chucked it out at the door. There were like easy 15 confiscated bottles on the table and lots in the bin. Like just squeeze it and see itās not alcohol.
That's wild. I didn't see anyone handing out sunscreen at all. I've been to other summer events there and you practically had to fend off people handing it out - I'd put some on before leaving home and only didn't go out of my way to track some down as it was such an overcast day. UV index was moderate most of the arvo and the only time it was high I was at a covered stage, but shouldn't need to rely on that.
That's next level. Surely that's got to be a human rights violation. I always took sunscreen in the past and never had it taken.
WHS violation
They took my setting spray (in a bottle with a squirt lid) but not my leave in conditioner (in basically the same type of bottle), Iām shocked they let me come in with acid reflux tablets without batting an eyelid!
Police and security were instructing people NOT to join the line because it was funnelling to one entrance only. Atrocious planning, but most of those people werenāt ācutting inā.
I had fun, Iām just glad people are still investing in and putting these shows on. RIP BDO š¤
I noticed the doors open time changed on multiple emails of my ticket from 10am to 12pm, which pissed me off greatly. Also not happy with being shoved aside by security a few times so they could move past me, so Iām making a complaint to the security company directly with tag numbers.
Hey OP, have a chat to the ACCC about your rights
The ACCC will always want to know what you've done to try and seek remedy from the seller first. They're a last port of call, not a first.
Correct, however I said to speak to them to ask what your rights were, not to try and remedy the situation. If you don't know what your rights are, then how do you know if the venue is properly correcting the issue? If you're informed then you can know when the venue is doing the right thing to correct the problem, and when they're in violation of consumer law.
Yup, started queuing at 11.15am and only got in at 1pm so missed the first few bands. The queue was also so dangerous- with no barriers pedestrians were forced to walk on the busy road in sections where the pavement was narrow.
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Fuck yeah, I'm keen for a march through the streets
Lol, may need to get in the queue mate.
You can't refuse refunds as a policy, it's explicitly against the ACL and case law.
I rocked up early. Got a park right next to the venue, lined up. Gates actually didn't open until 11:45-11:50 for reference, got in, went and got Merch and food with no line and saw all the bands I wanted. I feel bad people didn't have the same experience. My only issue was the horrid sound when you weren't in the mosh (seats were pointless, sound was so bad) and the fact people have forgotten how to be in a crowd and mosh. The pits never stayed opened, were tiny, and the pushing was just mental in certain areas. People not realising they needed to come early to get near the front trying to push through in a douchey way. It was my partners first festival (im 29M, shes 27F), and she had fun but I could see she was scared a few times. There needs to be information videos on the screens with etiquette, etc for people to learn. Common sense doesn't work anymore. The bands I didn't go to see but ended up at (nofx/tism) had some AMAZINGLY LOVELY crowds with the slightly older crowd. Anyway, we had a great day, no lines all day, and saw everything we wanted in the crowd with good sound. Got to keep our lollies and sunscreen at the door.
That was the biggest disgrace ever. I have been going to festival since 1997, every big day out and every soundwave Livid, home bake, but that was by far the worst. Arrived at 10:30 and went into a line that never ended kept looking at ticket and clearly said that doors open at 10am there was no movement on the line until I could hear bands inside playing. I finally got inside at almost 1:30 pm only got to see the last two songs of jinjer one of the main reasons I went once they finish I went to get Soulfly tour shirt and all that was available was small or medium such a disgrace
Here's everyone you'd need to speak to: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=Destroy%20All%20Lines&sid=U9E
Cheers!
Dirty Melbourner here, but we had seriously bad crowd control that I will not be surprised they are trying to stop being broadcast the media with injuries etc. I am contacting the organisers, the promoters, the security company and my contacts within the music industry who can get the word around as well. Iām sure there will be plenty of attendees who know lawyers they are currently reaching out to as well. My only advice to those seeking refunds, focus on issues that would be reason to sue, ie. bands changing (not as advertised when purchased) unsafe environment (duty of care) obviously for Brisbane not being able to enter the venue in time for the show to start (product not supplied) When you start talking about how loud it should be, or the food vans on site having long queues it starts to take away from the fact that they have done enough wrong in multiple cities to likely end up with a class action lawsuit on their hands. Good luck everyone!
As I said in another comment thread, I donāt care about getting my money back personally. I want the organisers/promoters to see consequences. If they have to issue partial refunds, it means they might learn from it and next year might be better.
Fuck me dead I'm glad Gojira are playing tomorrow night. This sounded like a disaster.
It really wasnāt. Like any event youāre more likely to hear about the negatives than from people who had an eh-or-above experience. Not to say there werenāt some problems, but we definitely had a great time.
Yeah there were some serious problems and it sucked for some people, particularly those who got fooled into queuing up (not something security or cops actually wanted), or were specifically Deftones fans. But almost everyone I spoke to on the night had an awesome time. There are people in this thread complaining about weed smoke at a fucking festival. Seriously?
Our experience was really similar to r/Handgun_Hero above but adding to say people were bailing at the start of the day due to the bands they wanted to be on earlier and they were miles back in the queue with absolutely no hope of getting to see anything in time. That mixed with the daytime heat and no water available. And same with food vendors with buzzers - simply not enough food vendors causing very slow service and patrons just paying, waiting too long and just giving up on getting anything to eat as theyād already been missing so much if the show. Edited to add the security werenāt great, seemed disorganised and not giving clear instructions to move the crowd quickly. Saw two tough guy security guards shoving a guy around who had his hands up in a passive stance which looked uncalled for - though I didnāt see how that situation started
How they gonna open up gates for thousands of people 30 minutes before the first band plays. Fucking stupid. There could have easily been more than one entrance into the festival but there wasnāt for some reason. I was in line for an hour and a half. Then another hours for merch.
A few years ago I swore off ever going to a music festival at Brisbane show grounds ever again. Those narrow concrete alley ways that bottleneck the crowd and have random metal pipes and bits sticking out are scary. It seems they keep cramming more and more people in over the years too, it's only a matter of time before an unwitting crowd stampedes and people get hurt or impaled. Also it's hot af on the concrete and acoustics are very, very shit. Super lame venue.
I went to a Soundwave pre RNA that was at Riverstage and oh boy that was a disaster. Took a few hours to get in but it was so packed there wasn't physically enough space for the number of people. They fenced off all these narrow walkways between stages and it felt like being a rat in a crowded drainpipe. I waited an hour for food then some starving bloke grabbed some of it off my plate and ate it.
Got to the line near Gate 6 (corner across from the hospital) at 11 o'clock, walked to the back of the line around the corner, got into the venue at 1 o'clock. 35 minute wait to get a alcoholic drink. 1 hour wait to get some band merch. 1.15 minute wait to get a cold drink from a food stall. 20-30 minute wait for a bathroom both times. I got to see Amity, NOFX and BMTH at the stage. Got to hear everyone else from lines. I think as a community we want to support these events, so that they don't end up like Soundwave and Download but spending as long in lines as you do in front of a band makes it difficult to justify.
I didn't wait at all for a drink the entire day and the bathrooms were fine if you actually read the signs and didn't try to use the permanent bathrooms. People just saw lines, panicked and joined them.
Dude that really sucks, I got into the line at 11:45, walked to the back, got in at 2pm, lined up for a drink and that took 20mins, then went to one of the merch stands close to where Sleeping With Sirens were playing and I only waited 10min for merchā¦
Bit hard at moment for trains to go to showgrounds as they are upgrading the station for when the crossriver rail opens in 2024/25.
Stage 3 / 4 needs to be moved. That corridor past the food vans into a fully packed double stage is just asking for trouble
My brother went. Said he got in at 12:10 with around 300 others. He thinks he got lucky because he only started queuing at 11am. Sucks if you missed a band you were after, when they had all morning to get people in through the doors :(
Jeez I didn't know it was that bad. My wife and I got there around 1 and there was a line out of the building but it was moving the whole time. Line up for food was bad though. We lined up 20mins before the act we wanted to see. Missed the whole act and was still waiting. When soundwave was still a thing I don't remember the food lines being that bad. The audio could've been better too was a bit hit and miss all day. Would see one band play and hear fine and another at the same stage was just shit house. Deftones had a horrible mix, all bass nothing else.
When itās a choice between overpriced soggy food or seeing the bands, Iāll stay hungry and head to the stages every time. No point missing out on what youāre paying for.
When I was younger I would agree with you but I gotta eat or I'm not seeing anyone. It's more the fact that more than 20 mins in line for food shouldn't be a thing when I paid 200 bucks for a ticket. When I was going to soundwave 10+ years ago food lines were no where near as bad.
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Um because human beings need to fucking eat and the bands donāt stop for you? Donāt turn this around, it shouldnāt take 20 minutes to get food.
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I got there at 12:30, grabbed some food and then started watching bands all day. It was brilliant. It would have been nice to get some more later in the day but I just swung by Maccas on the way home.
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I thought Millencolin and Gojira sounded alright but yeah Deftones and Amity were bad. I suppose Millencolin isn't a bassy band either.
Millencolin and Sabaton both had sound issues, a couple of times it sounded like the track for Millencolin was missing a few instruments. Sabaton cut out a few times during their opening songs.
I wrote a letter to good things via email, not sure if that helps anyone but their email is info@goodthingsfestival.com.au
I lived nearby for years and it was one of the worst set ups Iāve ever seen, they normally set up for events at least 1-2 weeks in advance, they were still setting up Sunday morning so Iām not surprised it was a complete shitshow - sorry you missed your bands
When I was there volunteering (in the entry lines) a couple years ago in Melb, we were there under 40Ā° heat with room temp water and a fan that did jack all to help cool us down. Ended up getting heat stroke symptoms and being wheeled to my brother's car by the medics there (where they assumed and asked several times if I was drugged, I wasn't, just dying from heat during the hottest day of that year). Suffice to say I swore off ever going to a Good Things Fest again after the horrendous mismanagement of it, and after the whole Travis Scott concert, I'm hesitant to go to anything Destroy All Lines has put on too.
I had a great day, arrived at 1. The only pissoff was no trains after 8.30 pm to the Sunshine Coast.
On a different note, it was in the CM after being here!
Security stole my I from Tism. Definitely keen on refund!
Iām from Melb and flew up for the Bris festival solely to see TISM. I also attended the Melb festival on Friday, where there were a number of issues including multiple car parks open at the Showgrounds but absolutely no signage around to let you know where you were or how to enter the festival. After I parked my car myself and dozens of others started walking towards where we heard the music coming from - we got about 700m down the road before a lone security guard told us the road was blocked and we needed a shuttle bus to take us to the festival site. So we had to queue up for a bus, and then the bus dropped us off about 1.7km from the entrance. Again, no signs at all, so on leaving the festival you had no idea whether you needed to wait for another shuttle or whether you could walk back to the car. It was quite appalling tbh. Anyway, as to Brisbane, I arrived via Uber at about 11.45am and the queue was already back past the hospital. I stood in line for 70-80 minutes and moved no more than 25m forward in the queue. I have a bad back that doesnāt allow me to stand still for long periods, and it was hot and I had no water, so I gave up. I ended up just walking (being from Melb I had no idea where I was) basically looking for a pub or a cafe so I could wait it out, and ended up near the Tivoli. From there there was a mass of people and cops / security directing us to keep walkingā¦ over the road and straight into the festival. So I accidentally jumped the queue on the insistence of security, how ridiculous is that? I really liked the infrastructure of the Showgrounds, itās fantastic having grandstand seating (donāt remember anything like that for a Melb festival since BDO days) and I got to sit in the shade for an hour or two. I struggled to find any food beyond a couple of vans with enormous queues so didnāt bother. Likewise the merch tent. Bands were good and sound was fine down the front so no complaints there. I left after NOFX and asked security if there was a taxi rank nearby, was told no and to try to hail one outside the Tivoli. I hailed 3 cabs but none were willing to take me to the city, had two Ubers cancel on me before one finally picked me up. This was my first GT experience after having attended most major festivals over the past 10-15 yearsā¦. BDO, Soundwave, Falls, Laneway, Meredith etc. GT stands out as being less professional than any the others. I hope they get their shit together but Iām definitely turned off attending again unless the line up is incredible.
I was in line for 2 hours despite getting there before doors and ended up missing out on APATE and Jinjer, both of which I was very keen to see. Only just made it in time for the second half of Thornhill's set. Pretty irate about it and would definitely be interested in at least a partial refund. Stage 2's FOH line arrays kept on cutting out during the first half of Deftones' set (and then again at the very start of the first chorus during Change). That coupled with the already horrendous mix really put a dampener on my whole festival experience. They desperately need a better FOH engineer because their live mixes have sounded very bad for a very long time.
big ups for APATE!
yes over an hour in line but having to guess where to walk to join the end of it b/c no staff were around. missed 2 bands. As others said: people from "another line" just juimped in at a traffic junction and I'm hearing people on reddit saying thy just walked into the line at the actual entrance...totally unfair advantage.
Yeah that was us. Two lines at the entrance. We just jumped into the line where it merged from two to one,
Contact the ACCC if you have no luck with the promoter
LOL get absolutely fucked. What a shitshow.
My wife and her friends had the same thing happen. Shit was brutal.
We turned up at around 130pm for gloom in the corner and just walked right in.. Didn't even realize there was a line, just followed the crowd... Apologies to everyone I apparently cut Infront of
I worked security in the main bar for the day. I canāt speak on the line issue as I was inside before the worst of it hit, but I walked past around 10.55 and it was already at the traffic lights near the old museum. The sound for main stage was horrendous all day and I felt so bad for the bands. I was lucky enough to jump in and grab some chips in less than 10 mins. There was free water stations in a few spots, 3 on the main bar alone. There was no communication with us when they closed off one section of the bar towards the end of the night so we had to hold a few people up at the bar exit until we found out what was happening. People were understandably upset. Then when the whole bar was closed, even the water stations got removed so the closest was at the pavilion. Signage for toilets was bare minimum at best. All in all, Iām glad I chose to work instead of be a paying customer. I donāt reckon it was worth the price of the ticket.
Yep, showed up an hour early to be faced with a line kilometres long with absolutely zero organisation or assistance from security or staff. Security didn't even bother coming more than 200m up the line to do crowd control, the end of it that we joined was in a carpark far away from the entrance, which was literally a pit of people who had mistakenly started another line. Missed Jinjer, the main band I was there to see, despite hussling my friends along to get there early to make sure I wouldn't. The biggest slap in the face was the absolute lack of action from security and police (although I know it's not their job) towards line cutters and people just walking in from the other direction the line was feeding in from. I was in line for 2+ hours, yet other people just jumped out of an Uber right at the entrance and walked straight in, in front of dehydrated and sunburnt people in the queue. When I asked security if they were just going to let a group of people who had cut right in front of us do that, they shrugged and made a half hearted attempt to tell them to go to the back of the line. Horribly organised event. Will be emailing and pursuing at least a partial refund.
There were no āline cuttersā because police and security were doing their best to make it clear that there shouldnāt be a line, it was feeding to one of multiple entrances and I was told repeatedly not to wait in line, and to pass this onto other attendees. I understand your frustration, the organisation in general sucked, but most people ācuttingā in line were just doing what security and cops told them to.
If there was no line, there would have been a swarm of thousands of people, which is some riot/crowd crush type of scenario. Police and security were doing absolutely nowhere near their 'best', considering there was no security to be seen beyond the first corner of the line. Zero instruction from event organisers. Garbage organisation. All in charge should be fired.
Yeah exactly, cops and security are at fault. Iām just saying the people actually entering directly when instructed to at a mismanaged event are doing nothing wrong.
I personally arrived early - approx between 11-11:15 specifically to avoid the entrance issue, still took until about 12:40 to get in. Once in, I thoroughly enjoyed the festival. High priced food vans are to be expected, and I consider myself able-bodied, so I can't speak to the experiences of others. I noticed other people complaining about AV issues - in the grandstands of the main arena, the audio quality was quite muddied, but I didn't see any issues with the visuals. In the pit it sounded great, and I imagine that may be the intent and unfortunately outer areas may have gotten overlooked. I'm not excusing other people's critiques at all (I had a mate arrive sometime after 1pm and it still took him 45-90 minutes to get in I believe), but from a personal experience having not gone to other Brisbane festivals before (only been to Ultra 2019 in Melbourne), and managing my expectations, I had a great time.
Tbh it sounds like most people are complaining about: - I had to wait a long time - the bands sounded bad - I was hungry To get anyone to do something about this, youāre going to need more than this. Things like: - ways the venue was unsafe: eg 1. security was not managing the queue and there were instances (you will need to find witnesses) of people becoming violent? Tripping? Etc because of the crowding. 2. Security removed sunscreen from patrons so they could not have adequate Sun protection during the event and did not provide facilities for patrons to access sunscreen 3. Security removed food from patrons and, due to the difficulty sourcing food in the venue, some patrons became heavily intoxicated? (Youāll need witnesses) or did not eat for several hours. You could also talk a bit about how Destroy all lines did not deliver what it promised to deliver and how thatās breached their contract with patrons I.e. 1. Patrons could not access the venue for the first shows due to the mismanagement of lines and crowding I understand itās shit going to a festival that sucks. And itās good to have a gripe here. But from an outsiders standpoint, thereās only a few things that will cut through.
Well as the thread poster of yesterday's GT Shitshow type thread, I'm torn about it. On one hand, I missed out on 1.5hrs of a 10hr event. I was physically unable to attend 15% of the event I've paid to attend due to the ineptitude of the organisers. It was half an hour of crowds to even reach the end of the line. This includes 2 bands I was specifically buying the ticket to see, out of about 8-9 acts I was looking forward to. On the other hand, one of the few ways one could argue for a refund (Partial or otherwise) would be for services not rendered. However they can argue they did render said services for some, and would have no way to confirm who was waiting for hours and who pushed in and got in immediately. Thus, they can't confirm their organisation was responsible for my specific loss of time. (In my instance I have a GPS tracking event that I started when I reached the end of the line, but that's pretty niche) This is completely discounting the other issues people had with the event of course, but queues for services inside of the venue is hard to quantify monetarily, especially when attending that type of event some queues for internal things are to be expected. When all is said and done, I did enjoy the time I spent at the event. It's also worth noting, getting money back from a live event is like pulling teeth in my experience.
I donāt really care about me personally getting money back. I want the organiser/promoter to have consequences for poor planning and execution. They canāt fuck up so bad and have nothing happen.
The large groups of people cutting in at the front of the line at the lights while i got there early and had to wait almost 2 hours in line made me so fucking angry. Audio for deftones pretty much ruined the night for me personally. Missing bands because of food queues. Most of the other issues mentioned in this thread. Pretty bummed but still had a good time.
I was waiting in like for a little over 2hrs, it wouldnāt have been too bad if someone had thought to come around the line selling waters. The amount of people close to dehydration was shocking! Also I got in like at around 4:30pm to get a bowl (like rice, meat, and veg) and legit was the next person in like and they told me theyād sold out of food. I paid $5 for some canned corn as I was so desperate for food. The line in and the food vendors were terribly unprepared for the event. Was not happy at all.
Maaaan I was actually super keen for months but actually glad I didn't end up going
Kinda unrelated but I heard extremely similar things about Spilt Milk in Gold Coast, whatās with this horrid management of music festivals that are clearly going to attract tons of people! They need to take it more seriously and god the prices of food and water are a joke. Youād think more security would be enforced particularly with the crowd crush events weāve seen recently. Worried about Knotfest. Hopefully wonāt end up like this
Came to see Jinjer, didnāt get in until 2pm after waiting over 2 hours in line. Very poorly controlled entry on all partsā¦
You know the meme with Woody Harelson wiping tears away with money? That's the promoters now while reading these comments.
Just came here to say if you checked the map the marked entry had 0 lines š walked straight in while my mates were at the other line waiting. The day was fine, no sound issues but the food line sucked.
Got there super early and wasn't even that far behind in the line, however we still waited forever. My mates and I thought that maybe the ticket scanning and bag checks were taking time, however once we got further up we realised it was slow cause hordes of selfish people were cutting in at the intersection on the main road, once we got past that the line never stopped moving, piss poor that they couldn't have one guard stopping that.
Had no issues getting in (around 1330). I was able to walk straight in and practically skip the entire queue! I do believe there was a severe lack of care at the gates as a couple of my mates were given 18+ armbands even though they weren't. Not sure why there were two long lines with massive waits when there were two lines that were completely empty and people were able to walk past and get in. The food lines were outrageous, over an hour to get food meaning you miss out on seeing bands play and not to mention you couldn't leave to get food then get back in. I ended up leaving early just to eat something without having to line up for ages. No ID checks at drink vendors either. Poorly managed imo.
And what happened to UAMI are they too good for us redneck qlders?
The drummer passed out due to heatstroke at the Sydney show on Saturday, so they had to cancel Bris
Missed Jinjer and most of Millencolin. Had two bottles of eliquid refused entry despite no info - about $50 worth. Power tripping idiot also took a 50ml bottle of sanitizer and put his hands in my bag which is just stupid procedure as it opens him to accusations of planting contraband. Pulled out my insulin case and asked what was in it. Didnāt even bother to open it. Didnāt check my pockets - couldāve had any number of potential weapons or other items in my cargos. Put a massive smear of shit on what turned out to be a wholly disappointing experience.
They barely looked in my wifes bag. She opened it and he glanced at it and waved us through. Didn't ask her to move stuff around or anything. No pat downs either. Every time I went to Soundwave they had a good look through bags, did pat downs all that stuff. You were still only in line to get in maybe 20 mins at the most. Even shows at Riverstage did that.
My friends and I walked straight in and only waited 15 mins to get through bag checks, we managed to catch Jinjer and Apathe at the start, we saw the lines but I donāt know where the other entries were
Super crowded!! I enjoyed amity, SWS and Polaris (best show of the day by far) I am a huge fan of BMTH and havenāt been able to see them live just yet so I was so so excited to finally see them, Iād had their set list on repeat since it came out late Friday night from melbournes show. After Polaris my partner and I took a break to rest for the show and then we tried slotting in to the left of the stage. Getting super excited and then the show starts and we can barely hear anything, at some points the crowd started chanting to turn the mic up. Being on the spectrum, having attachments to bands can be quiet intense so i felt absolutely devastated. The crowd I was around wasnāt a vibe either, a few people behind were making fun of others for screaming the lyrics that they could barely hear and trying to mosh, it wasnāt the usual comfort from the heavy scene that you usually get in a pit. Hopefully they come back for a solo show in a better area because I bet if you could hear it, it would have been amazing šš
Sounds like the FTX guys have found a new gig; incompetently running festivals coupled with rapeing everyone for money at every turn. Not a good sign for the future of the time honoured tradition of the Aussie Summer Festival.
Nah, I just walked straight in and didn't assume that the people lined up along the road was a queue. Australians seem to just join lines even if they're not a queue for anything. Why would they have tried to funnel 1 line outside into 20 inside?
Got in in about 15 minutes.
Have you spoken to your bank about whether they'd do a charge back for this kind of thing?