Paul Rogers

Dear Mike,

Thanks for the mail. I'm glad you experienced no problems this year. I have written direct to the organizers as I was disgusted (if that is the correct word), at this year's organisation. I think that without all the claims on the Official website and in the programmes of a much better and safer event then I would not be complaining at all - what we experienced was chaotic and downright dangerous.

To summarize first of all we paid £225+ for 3 x 3 day Event Pass 1 passes - these arrived on time, the programmes never have.
We decided to miss the Friday events and drove down on Friday afternoon, calling the event office in Cardiff every 5 mins, on auto redial from my mobile. After 2 hours we got through and were told to drive to Cardiff to collect the missing programmes. As we had arrived at our hotel in Swansea we declined the kind offer of another 2 hour round trip.

Sat. morning up at God knows when and a trip to Resolfen. On driving to the stage we saw a sign saying 4 miles to the stage ????, after parking up we then had a 1 hour walk (route march) to the stage just missing the first 4 cars, oh well at least the viewing was not bad, even though we could not walk down the track to more advantageous viewing. Then a short drive to Felindre Service, not bad for a few hours, even though the only toilets broke and were closed for 2 hours with only 1 chemical "Sess Pitt" for all the visitors - this was disgusting and unhealthy.

Sat. afternoon we thought "right, let's leave early to get to the SS at Cardiff". After arriving at 3.00pm, we were the first in the car park, the bus arrived. "Alleluia" we thought, this is well organised. With 5 people on board, the bus left and we arrived at the SS stage, then a short walk and we were in !!, only 4 hours to spend. We did spend £6.20 for 3 coffees, and £3.20 for a burger - no comparison to the prices in the programme that someone lent us.

The SS event came and went in a blur then the mass stampede to the buses, 10,000 people all trying to get on a few manned buses. After queuing at the red stop for maybe 2 hours in which time some 2,000 people had amassed here, resulting in absolute hysteria when a bus arrived, shouting at the officials who had no control, and did/would not be able to organise a p*** up in a brewery, we boarded the bus. This ended in 35 people standing on both floors - "yeah this is safe" I thought but what the hell can you do - we are all treated like second rate humans by Network Q, just grin and bear it.

Sunday morning - discussing at the hotel bar - "let's get up real early to get to the second stage at Resolfen". Leaving the hotel at 5.30am we arrived at around 6.30am and to our amazement saw cars parked either side of the access road. On asking the "official", I was informed that they (the spectators) had taken them by surprise by arriving at 2.00am onwards and had parked blocking the routes in. After then driving/squeezing the car between these cars for the next hour we arrived at the stage - we were then ushered past the stage as there was no parking anywhere in sight with cars abandoned left, right and centre.

We then drove/crawled for another mile or so, and then were informed by people walking towards us that the single lane of traffic in front had come to a stop, cars were being parked in the middle of the ones either side and in fact we should do the same. We then left the car stuck in the middle with around 100 cars behind us doing the same. After another 40 min sprint we arrived at the stage with a crap view, hot, knackered and angry. After the first 10 - 15 cars we saw the usual run back to the cars which we joined, after arriving back at the car we waited and waited for over 2 hours before we could reverse back and get on the route out again. Passing a large motor home embedded up to its chassis in the wet mud at the side. ORGANISED AND SAFE ALLOCATED PARKING - I THINK NOT NETWORK Q.