redmary


such a simple request..........FIX THE TOILET DOORS so that they all close properly, its very annoying !!!!!!
and praise? thank god there are screens in the word tent!!!!!
xx

 

Remember discussing this with you on Sunday Mary! (Great to finally meet you and Wayne by the way)    
 
I Would also like to add my agreement on the amount of people. I'm aware it's a business, but I struggle to see how the festival/ site would be able to sustain any further increase in capacity. At times it felt that it was goaning, the bridge and the main entrance as the main examples. If it is likely to remain at the 30-35000 level, there is a a huge case for a further bridge to be contructed and widen or at least provide another entry point (say at the top end of yellow camping?) this would make the whole beginning/end of day experience much better. 
I except that location is what sets this wonderful festival apart so I would hate that to change, but this has to be weighed up against commercial interests.... 

Had a great time, thank you, but must admit something wasn't quite right...

Good stuff:

1)  Lots of stuff I had no idea I'd like - I stumbled on the dress rehearsal for Pleasure's Progress and enjoyed opera the first time in my life, Nigel Kennedy was mad but wonderful, and the Daniel Kitson/ Gavin Osborn evening readings were a singular highlight.

2)  Screens in the Word Arena!

3)  Spoilt for choice all weekend.  

Bad Stuff:

1)  Stumbling upon stuff was harder to do - loads of things had queues, and often with no indication of whether or not you would get in if you joined them.  I twice spent significant chunks of time stood waiting for something only to be turned back at the door.

2)  Thursday night seemed to have been ill thought through.  It seemed as if you'd failed to predict the volume of people who would come that night?  There was the Tom Jones issue (loads of people turned away, many of whom had only just arrived because public transport also went tits up).  The water ran out friday morning, the security seemed much less (a perception possibly increased by having a "visitor" let himself into our tent on the first night, before hastily retreating when I turned out to be awake.)  Despite a number of my highlights happening on thursday, it did seem to set the whole weekend off badly...

3)  Toilets seemed worse than ever, which may have been down to capacity issues.

4)  There was friction in the campsite between those who wanted to stay up partying until dawn every night, and those who wanted to actually sleep at some point.  (Security seemed to side with the former for some reason.)  I know this is pretty much inevitable at such things, and that there's a "quiet area", but is there any benefit in making the delineation more explicit?  

5)  The seating in Film and Music tent is bizarre at best.  Either get rid of it all, and make us all sit down, or fill out the whole thing with chairs/ benches.  Having tables near the front with vast swathes of dead space behind where no-one can see is plain stupid.  (Some way of cooling it down in there would have been good too, it was unbearably hot.)

6)  As others have said (and some of the above implies), the sheer numbers of people were too high.

This was my first Latitude, so I can't compare to previous editions. I really enjoyed it by the way.

Praises:
1)MOST of the acts were fantastic.
2) I liked the seating around the Obelisk. For bands like Dirty Projectors and Rodrigo y Gabriella, I wasn't that fussed about 'dancing', but sitting and listening was enjoyable.
3) MOST of the people seemed really relaxed and kind.
4) I like the stages being close together. It felt cosy, I could get from one to another in 2 minutes which was great for when sets overlapped.

Un-praises:
1) Florence, Mumford etc brought a lot of idiots along.
2) Kids. I'm 16 and even I found the kids annoying. Sitting right at the front of the Obelisk? Some of us wanted to get there to see the bands, not just have a chat with our mates. 
3) After the bands finished I wanted to do stuff, but nothing really appealed to me. Not one for the DJs, especially ones playing bad music so every night went back to my tent and pretty much went to sleep. Everyone was so loud too, made it tough to sleep.
4) Film tent needs to be bigger and cooler. Took ages to get in, and when I did I was far too hot to stay for long.
5) SIGNS! I missed Tokyo Police Club as I couldn't find the stage. No signs or stewards to ask for directions. Also drove about 10 miles in the wrong direction on Friday, due to lack of signs.
6) The amount of litter was obscene.
7) Could hear other bands, especially the bass, from other stages. Very annoying.

Despite all this, still had a very good time. Thanks Latitude!

Well dones:
I thought the car-parking was better organised this year than last year.
Screens on the Word (remember a lot of people asking for this last year)
Once the gates opened the wrist-banding/entry to the campsite part of the process was quicker despite a lot more people turning up before 2 and the delay to the entry (I heard that a section of fencing had come loose in the wind and had to be repaired).

Not Well Dones:
Litter and Bins in the arena: Couldn't find a bin near the word or the obelisk, litter pickers seemed to decrease in number over the course of the weekend. The red bins were permanently overflowing As a consequence there was noticeably more litter around.
Composting Loos: Bring them back
Food: Any chance of a fruit stand next year? other than melon I couldn't get any fruit in the arena area
Music and Film Arena: so far as I can see this is the only venue to still be the same size as 2006. Any chance of an upgrade?

The increase in numbers was definately more noticable, the rush and queues distracted from the usual atmosphere. Would they ever consider decreasing the capacity?

Also, whilst it is a festival for all ages there was a great proportion of lairy teens (this is not to say all teens there) maybe due to the younger line up?. I felt it began to have a more mainstream V or Reading festival feel.

Notes from my third year at Latitude:

Praises
Loved Belle and Sebastian.
Good work on moving and expanding the Comedy Tent. Made it possible to see an act without the increase in size being too detrimental to the atmosphere.
The toilets seemed quite clean most of the time so thanks to the people who had that unenviable job. The showers also good for a festival.
Cafe Carib is the greatest festival food outlet ever, they have great staff and you get a huge pile of delicious food which is great value for money.


Suggestions
Cap capacity at whatever it was last year. The crowds this year were ridiculous. I don't want to have to queue for an hour to get into the arena then again for whatever I want to see.  The non-music stuff is the main draw for me and if I can't get in then it's 'just another music festival'.
The bag searches to get into the arena were ineffectual. Either do it properly or not at all as otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time. I walked in with a bottle openly in my hand every time (water, admittedly) and your stewards didn't mention it but still halfheartedly squeezed my bag. What's the point?
Ask your stewards not to bellow their conversations outside my tent at 4am.
I miss the BBC tent.
Bring back the composting toilets.
Florence and the Machine do not a headline act make, they have ONE album.
The stages seemed too loud this year, noise bled into whatever you were watching nearby and were unbearably loud at night.

Praises:

- Word Arena was fantastic. 
- Nice relaxed atmosphere, plenty of good food on offer and not too extortionate prices.
- Theatre Arena was great. 

Suggestions:

- Get better sound men. The management of bass levels in particular was largely horrendous. 
- Either move the stages further apart or turn the sound down. Vampire Weekend were clearly audible from the rail between songs during Grizzly Bear. Shambles! Though Daniel Kitson's comments on the bass audible from the Lake were hilarious.
- More toilets. More bars. Nowhere near enough of either for the capacity. 35,000 people and 5 toilets in the arena? 
- One entrance to the arena was a bizarre decision.
- Bag checks were ultimately pointless and led to plentiful drunk 16 year olds.
- The over-18 wristband should be valid ID for the bars. The under-18 wristband should prevent kids being served. Saw numerous kids with pints. 

bobloblaw

Un-praises:
3) After the bands finished I wanted to do stuff, but nothing really appealed to me. Not one for the DJs, especially ones playing bad music so every night went back to my tent and pretty much went to sleep. Everyone was so loud too, made it tough to sleep.

That was the worst thing. Not only were the post-bands DJs ALL playing (deliberately) bad music, it was so loud you could hear it in your tents and you couldn't sleep because of Foreigner or some other awful nonsense!

Raised screens at the Obelisk

Carpeting in the comedy arena (a.k.a. dusty mcdustersons dustbowl of fun (fun = dust))

No flags (on principle, not because they were a huge issue)

Agreed with toilet doors

Obviously, more people and exclusive contracts bring in the cash, but for the love of god, don't raise it again

Maybe need a re-think of the line-up, obviously it's partially determined by band's availability, but looking at 
their live dates, no reason why Crystal Castles and Rodrigo y Gabriela couldn't have been switched, being much 
more suited to the headliner's demographic

Praises -
- Meeting Chris Morris made my weekend, we spoke for 10 minutes about his old radio show and Brass Eye and how because of all the rules and regulations now, no one wants to make an edgy comedy.
- Belle and Sebastian - The reason i bought a ticket. Best band of the weekend by far.
- (p)Art Brut - Should have done a longer set on a stage where everyone was not sitting down.
- Four Lions + Q+A - Already seen the film, and the questions in the Q+A were pretty awful but being in the presence of Chris Morris and Sam Bain was brilliant.
- Dirty Projecters
- Kitty, Daisy and Lewis, Blues Brothers

Suggestions
- Reduce capacity. I admit that this year was my first Latitude as well but i wasnt expecting everything to be as crowded.
- Teenagers off their heads on drink/drugs. The woods was pretty unbearable in the evenings.
- Better and more toilets. They were pretty awful.

- Get rid of the skin flint staff who served me on the crepes stall

My Highligts were...
James, P-Art Brut, Belle and Sebastian, Kurran and the Wolfnotes, having a good chat with Eddie Argos in the signing tent, Laura Docdkril and Byron Vincent
Billy Loadsa Mates!
I like the size of the Word arena, good sound and screens!!!
Meeting Annie

Low points...
Billy Loadsa Mates having to spilt as we all couldn't get in to one space!
Idiots camping near us.
the shedule of bands... Can't really understand why Crystal castles were on before Belle and Seb, and would have like to seen James higher up (but that's just me)
Need more toliets - bring back the compost toilets.

Been now to 3/5.

Praise:
1) Bins and litter in the arena far better than before due to regular changes.
2) Despite the noticable increase in numbers queues were ok and even better than before esp for toilets.
3) Loo roll and sanitiser not running out.
4) The late night Faraway Forest stuff - otherwise as stated above it's all cheese after 11.00pm
5) Comedy tent size/accessibility 10x better - first year ever for me to sit down inside, - sound better outside. This was due to the fact the compare's helped out by taking time to get everyone moving forward. Love it now being next to the loos!
6) Food choice - as ever. The pastie stall and the carribean curry best ever.
7) The weather was better!!

Suggestions:
1) Everyone who smoked inside the tents - have a thought eh? Could hardly breath sometimes, esp bad in 'the word' tent.
2) The 'end of the road' festival send out a CD of bands with their tickets. Can the programme be picked up outside the arena?
3) Let preceeding acts know in the comedy tent that we've heard the 'middle class' joke already....
4) SORT OUT THE CAMPERVAN QUEING FIELD!!!! - Worst ever year for getting in (and out). Needs better stewarding. Everyone drunk and angry by the time we arrived. Not the way to start a festival ... and make everyone miss the acts they want to see. Needs computer modelling. - or common sense. People are going to turn up on Thurs night. You know how many campers they'll be. Let the campers come in Red Gate 4 and just camp in Green Camping B - poor old vans can't cope with idling for hours to get in. Don't hold us in a pen, let us just get set up!! Completely ruined any green credentials. All the fumes! Try being fair with tre queing order. Don't merge lanes with cars... - Separate entrances. - What came first? - The stupid wrist band in the van idea holding everything up or was that to appease us?
5) How about a little busker type music on the way/in out of the camper park/car parks whilst queing?
6) Need more accessible recycling in the campervan field. Being given the promised bags would help. - Give out corn starch tent pegs?
7) That was the absolute limit on numbers of people. Please no more.

praises:

1) Belle & Sebastian
2) the programme was excellent, really well written and accessible. I found a lot of interesting acts that I would otherwise have missed. 
3) toilets and showers broadly good  

suggestions:

1) sort out the lake stage. this was the only stage which everyone HAD to listen to whilst walking through the festival, queuing for food or just hanging out and it seemed to have been programmed by a 17-year-old Shoreditch Tw@t with minus-levels of taste or no eardrums at all.  not only there was not a single band i wanted to see on that stage but every time i tried/was forced to listen the music was so unequivocally talentless, tuneless and terrible that i had to leave!  

2) get some diversity! there was almost no sign that this was a festival in england - a country rich in cultural and ethnic diversity and instead of representing that, there was just more and more of the same white middle class guitar bands/theatre/opera/contemporary dance.  very disappointing!! 

3) signs for stages.  what is so hard about providing a list of bands outside the tent?? it was really difficult with places like poetry or film and music to know what was going on, who the excitement was all about or if it was worth waiting to get it.   

Praise
1) The helpful family campsite staff I noticed carrying things and finding tent pitches for later arrivals.  Also the chap who offered to help me get my kids' wagon (yes, I was one of those people, sorry) down the steep hill to the children's area.  Oh and the staff on Monday offering help with packing up.
2) The toilets in family camping, most of the time.
3) The non-music line up was brilliant. 
4) Comedy tent - great to have the area just outside the matting where we could park the children and not get in anyone's way.
5) The atmosphere.  It was my first Latitude, so I can't compare it to others, but everyone was friendly and kind, right down to "youngsters" offering the use of their sunblock for my kids in the Obelisk arena and a couple of girls from a large group offering to get ice creams for the children so we didn't have to lose our spot. Really charming.

Suggestions - mostly about facilities I'm afraid. 
1) Too much sound carrying between stages and I was surprised by how I could hear every word of every cheesy tune played in the woods late at night, despite being right at the back of family camping.
2) WATER!  It's a basic human necessity.  I counted at least four different times that the water went off.  Thus, the toilets became stinking, unflushable holes and nobody could wash hands (no back up hand sanitiser in family camping).  I felt incredibly sorry for the people who had to clean the toilets after the water went off.  And how come turning on the "non drinking water" tap reduced the pressure in the "drinking water" taps next to it.  That worried me a bit.
3) Showers.  Only eight for the whole of family camping?  On the Sunday I finally relented and queued for over an hour with bored child.  One block of four were freezing and the other block of 4 were alternately boiling or freezing.  And who were those evil people who spent 40, yes 40 minutes in the shower?  Husband discovered you could walk to the communal showers and back in half the time.  Lots of people were commenting on how much busier it was than previous years, yet without an obvious increase in facilities.
4) "KIDS" toilets in the long drops.  I presume the point of them was to try to have a toilet for children which hadn't been destroyed by someone's drunken aim.  Lovely idea, but it didn't really work.  They were still vile most of the time (I never did see a toilet attendant outside the campsites) and could do with a smaller toilet seat on them.  I had to cling to my 3 year old to stop her falling into the mire. By Friday afternoon she was asking to be taken to the "nice toilets" each time.  (That's a long walk...)
5) The wait to get a campervan in on Thursday.  Sister in law waited over three hours to be wristbanded and then had to get the trailer tent up in the dark.
6) Agree about lack of bins in the arena, although the recycle point staff were nice.

I have a sugestion for the film and music tent. Lose the tables and chairs, replace them with a whole bunch of cushions, beanbags or those low chairs seen in the poetry tent.
Trying to watch Chris Morris' short film we were stood not too far from the back and people at the back shouted for everyone to sit down, eventually everyone sat down and then half the people towards the back couldn't see because of the tables and chairs.

Our 3rd Latitude, wonderful weekend. Whole family enjoyed themselves.

Great

• Amiina on Sunday morning in the Film tent
• The Dream in the Theater Tent
• The Ballet
• Yeasayer
• Rodrigo & Gabriela
• Belle & Sebastian
• Kids area. Especially the  pizza people
• Not running out of loo paper in family camping

Good

• James
• School of Seven Bells
• Tom Jones on Sunday lunchtime
• Vampire Weekend
• Pizza for the People
• Phil Jupitus improv on Friday morning
• Leaving site Monday morning was much improved on last year

Bad

• The bridge & access to family camping at busy times (especially after headliners in the dark)- cannot get any more people on with existing access
• PA SNAFU at Tom Jones on Thursday night (and the audience who didn't get the point and were too drunk to care)
• Nearly not being able to take my 10 & 8 year olds in to see Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty & Alladin in the Film tent at 11am on Sunday morning - "only 15s only" & the fact that no-one seemed to have considered this in advance.
• No Guardian - it's a "middle class festival" (as we're always being told) let me get my fix of left of centre middle class news, would not touch a Murdoch publication with a barge pole
• Tuck shop running out of milk on Saturday & no more arriving. (Who knew that you could eat cereal with orange juice?)
• Same number of showers as last year for a much larger family camping area.
• The number of paper cups
• Queue at food outlets
• No "Now Show"
• No compost toilets
• Delay before opening main entrance on Thursday

thomc

• Nearly not being able to take my 10 & 8 year olds in to see Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty & Alladin in the Film tent at 11am on Sunday morning - "only 15s only" & the fact that no-one seemed to have considered this in advance.

Why can't they go back to letting parents make their own decisions on what they want the kids to see, as long as they warn on content why restrict it, or was this a general rule in the film tent if so why?.

We went in there with our mob of 5 kids between us to get out of the rain shower on Sat morning and the security man initially wouldn't let us in. Seeing as there wasn't actually anything on at that time, he relented but just as the rain stopped, some ahem "artistic and erotic imagery" started up on the screen as part of the women directors film show. I was asked by one of my sons why I was staring at a woman's bum, and then we left.

£8 for a program!!!
No lanyard!!!
£8 for a middle class festival program!!!!
At least include a lanyard with it, instead of having to carry the English dictionary around all day.

It's great festival, however I feel it's lost a lot of charm since the early days.
It used to have such a community feel to it, that now seems to be over run by annoying wanna be NME teenagers.

I know you can't please everyone however some small achievable changes would make it a more fruitful experience:
Put stage times on the screen in the main stages.
I also thought the lineup order was slightly wrong. God, I know I'm not the biggest James fan in the world but before the Macabees is just ludicrous.
Also the soundbleeding between stages needs to be sorted out
Bins - more please
People - less please
An arena that size cannot hold that amount of people.
 
The campside assistants were amazing, always helping out when they could, filling up water bottles, they were great!

Also the village has nothing!!
If you are going to increase capacity then you too need to increase conveniences too.
One breakfast tent is not enough, we lined up for 90mins!

Also after the atrocities of this year, maybe photo tickets are the way forward.
It's where Glastonbury works, they have a database of 170,000 photographs where people are identifiable and maybe if the same practice was put into place the police could catch these poor excuses for human beings.

While waiting for permission to be gained the security guard told me that he had not let one couple in to see the doors movie on Saturday as they had a 3 month old baby with them.

We were only finally let in if we promised that we would leave immediately after and would not stay and watch the film about bird-watching.