PLAY Festival 2006

i think i love you meg!!

i honestly would love to pay extra next year for these facilities showers and toilets

Read above to see about grey water issues.

Skully, Like your idea about the screen, but as I said before the festival grey water in a huge issue that would become worse if more people used the taps to wash. I understand people need/want to wash but under a tap isn’t the best solution for anyone; I think you’ll agree.

Over the next year I want to become more involved in working at the farm. They have working weekends that anyone can go to, and I would love to see then turning in to Hop meets of sorts where we can go and give something back to the farm.

I would like to persuade them to let us build them some facilities; more compost loos, showers and maybe things like a sauna in time. If we did that it would allow them to sell the field to other people wanting to run festivals/fates/fairs/markets etc and not worry about the facilities. Having said that, this is just a dream at the moment and I’ve not even talked properly to the other two partners in Play (Dunc and Strugz) yet, let alone Fordhall Farm!

The paper layout was good for the day time I thought. It had the stalls where they were with the café opening in to the marquee inline with them. The workshop area was right in front of the stalls and the marquee, meaning that the stalls would have been a large part of the festival. This broke down when Ray (the food guy) couldn’t physically go where we had him planned and seeing as he was already a day late setting up due to waiting on the marquee) I had to make a quick decision and put him where he was. I wasn’t happy with it at the time, but because of water and power there wasn’t much else I could do. I know you’re not having a go as such, I’m just letting you know what the situation was.

Where the layout fell down (even on paper) was in the evenings. We didn’t take in to account the noise at all. Consider it a lesion learned.

hey dude

that was the original plan - but for those you need a drainage system (manhole) there aint none on that site

hence our much annoying plan b - the portaloo

actually that may have been plan c - but anyway ..............

drainage


*god dam sym and his lighting typing - oh and more concise answering *

portaloos were plan C

i know man - they were wernt they.............

still 3rd place isnt a complete loss

smile - for feck sake!

but the portaloos were really nice as far as portaloos go. Not grotty, not very stinky, and ALWAYS had toilet paper! Sometimes, hand drying paper and soap too! !!!! !!

Yup.... for the porta loos, only on one occasion did the smell and that was sorted out within a couple of hours, which is dang good for a 5 day festival if you ask me.

The Portaloos were amazing considering they were portaloo's!

The only negative part of Play for me (except it ending, and having to go home) was the food, I know it wasn't your fault & it was a last minute thing (kudos for getting someone in so late). Just thought i'd mention it.
Ideally something like last year (not necessarily the same people) would have been ace.

Food...all in the bad. You'll love it next year beleive me I hope you liked the meat from the farm too for those who ate it

We're glad the portaloos weren't to hateful. It was really important to us, we'd set a reasonably large budget for the loos to have nice demountable buildings brought onsite but because we can't drain we'd have to have them emptied 1-2 times a day which is a huge cost for us ontop of the cost of the loos. So we decided to use the entire budget and get the most and best portaloos we could find.
I was really happy with them and the service was great. The frist emptying was sooner than we expected but they were there within an hour or two to sort it out for us.

Skully that's ace feedback, thank you so much. More threads like that (especially on the website or by email to reviews@playfestival.co.uk or by using the contact us section of the website would be marvelous

I also thought the loo's were ace
Only once did I discover no toilet paper, but that was fine as I had emergancy baby wipes in my pocket
What exactly does a compost loo entail? I heard horror storys from my dad of just a big pit in the ground and a plank to rest on...
I don't know about anybody else but I found it really hard to go if I'm in a public place!

The only downside to them being towards the end of the 5 days, when everything started to build up....and the flappy down bits in the bottom got stuck down because of all the poo

I didn't find not washing that atrocious either. It wasn't too hot, so I didn't wake up in a sauna like tent all sweaty and minging, and a quick baby wipe wash was enough to keep me feeling fresh-ish

I didn;t find the layout too bad. The food was right by the big top which was lovely, and the stalls were just a skip away. As for the noise the only time I found it too loud was when the death metal where on and despite Ed's cries of "Listen to it properly! They're great!" I could couldn't enjoy it.. But thats down to personal taste and if other people enjoyed it then its fine by me.

I can't comment on the noise levels at the stalls...besides the cheesy dance workshop the only time I was using that area I was um....*ahem* in another state of mind so much so that I didn't notice the noise


All in all i thought it was a fantastic festival and 10x better than last year, and if it were conducted next year the same as it were this year I would have no quams

There were too many good bits to be focusing on the bads bits...

the loos where the best i'd seen at an event, mainly because ther where no coke heads/mash heads useing loo roll then throwing it on the florr instead of in the pan


BELIEVE me................... try going to the loo at a squat party and you'll know how grim they get

with you all on the wash screens but being "combat collin" baby wipes did it for me ( had a HUGE pack of them.

i cant believe after gayles workshop telling people to find their own rythem no matter what tune was playing people still cant grasp the main point of the lesson............
-------- what ever the pace of a tune find your own rythem-----

well thats what i picked up from it anyway

luckily hoppers tend not to be coke heads of mash heads.

I didn't really have any problems with either the music that was played or the levels it was at. I wasn't over keen on the stage set up or the speaker set up, but that has all been covered.

The toilets were incredabily clean, I have seen protaloo's at one day events in much, much worse states than that I think the trough idea by at least one of the taps would be a good idea.
I agree with Skully (and others) that a seperate area away from the main tent for quieter spinning/chatting/chilling after the shows would be a good idea as well. I appretiate that power is an issue. But for the light you can get either solar powered garden lights that stick in the ground or some oil/gas burning heater lamp's to dot around outside away from the main tent.

I though the porta-urinal at Workhouse was a good idea. Beer increasing the number of times one needs to pee, whilst reducing one's ability to aim straight.

Any chance of getting a couple of barrels of the stuff they were serving at BJC, or is there still a mountain of Whitbread + Labatts?

I think the prospect of being on a comedown in that heat could have put a few people off

I know a few people who got pretty mashed on the herbal highs, although it was pretty late by then, so not many people would have noticed.

I like to party so hard that sometimes people come up to me and ask me where I get my drugs from. They don't seem to believe me when I say I'm not on anything

I get that ALOT Polarity. Especially in clubs. People ALWAYS without fail would as me what I was on or ask me to sell them something. And be shocked that I wasn't on anything except good music...

I've sorta of calmed down a bit in recent years from from the whirlwind dancefloor safety hazrad I used to be, instead toning it down and being more of a freaky thai chi/bodypopping hybrid (nowhere near as proficient as Mr Ed but it's what I do so gonna kept on doing it)

just thought i would say again the metal band and the scar band were amazing.

I know its not to everyones taste but they were awsome deffently need more of them next year (though to be far there was a good mix of music and i could ignore or at least tolerate most of the music being played that i didnt like as it was only fair)

as ive said before it was an awsome festival one of the best ive ever been too and one of the friendliest (sp)

hugs
SPike

I think it was just musicality but it involved huge amounts of dancing like a twat. I enjoyed it immensly!

Check My Gallery for Play photos!!! more goin up tomorrow when i have time

I enjoyed drew's dance workshop lots, I was eating a blueberry turnover, which made it even better!